


To Manifest Me Rightly

by Aenigmatic



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 69,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenigmatic/pseuds/Aenigmatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ardeth Bay's recurring dreams are more than just a figment of imagination. Gradually he finds out it has its roots in a time long past. Set just after 'The Mummy Returns'. A re-post of an old story written in 2002-3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Repining Hours

He could not stop the recurring vision of dull red blood that fell in sporadic drops. They hung at the edge of something silvery, grew larger under the weight of gravity and resembled teardrops before falling off. But he couldn't see where the droplets fell, just heard their drips somewhere far below And he was frantic, for even in that hazy world of dreams he knew that it signalled urgency, that he had to act, soon.

But for what cause? For whom?

The labouring in vain to recapture the past was never more keenly felt; all intellectual efforts must surely prove futile. Hidden somewhere outside this realm, in some dreamlike state of which he had no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not he came upon it before he himself must die.

But he was tired, physical energy sapped, cuts and wounds fresh from the recent abysmal assault and emotionally spent. He struggled against the bonds of duty that held him captive, wishing nothing more than to hoist a sail down the Nile river, down to El-Iskandariya and beyond and avoid like the plague all those who persuaded themselves that they have found what they sought.

For the longest time he was disoriented, weary eyes that were trained on the vastness of the desert became unfocussed as he swayed slightly from the brilliant flash of white that obliterated that vision. And the recollections of the past few days overcame him, making him feel like swaying again, this time with worry and angst.

The Army of Anubis.

The moving cloud of black, seething shapes below that noxious powder that swept across dunes with lightning speed, with the power to halt any fearless warrior in his gallop. The tribes of the Medjai had faltered, and he too, the son of the Medjai tribe and commander of their army. The first wave of the fierce black dog-warriors running tirelessly, pitted against an all too human army robed in black -and the strength of the supernatural became evident by the time the second wave appeared. He remembered looking about him with despair, seeing nothing but the beardless young warriors who had yet to complete their training, breaths heaving from the exertion. He was convinced that looking the supernatural army was no different from looking into a mirror that reflected eternal death at them. It would be an honourable death, he had chanted to himself repeatedly, to die in the face of battle, in combat with an army that was not of this world.

And was brought back to the sad reality of the many dead Medjai that dotted the sand dunes. Black spots that appeared on their golden crests, a sight to behold. The contracting pain in his chest hastily replaced the joy of the knowledge that the O'Connells had destroyed the sources of evil in Ahm Shere. A great deal of housekeeping had shown that there was barely enough of his people left to guard the Pharoahs and whatever remaining warriors he had now had returned back to their camp to tend to their wounds and seek comfort from their families.

What did he have then?

Ardeth Bay stood up from the edge of the cliff that he had been sitting on and shielded his eyes from the brilliance of the rising sun, his ears appreciating the silence that deafened him now; for a while he was free from the thundering noise that always accompanied destruction and death. It was a vile memory, and the fulfilment of lifelong duty became momentarily incomprehensible to him, before his now passive heart. The desert watch was a marvellous chance to allow him to be half-lost; in the darkness he was also another darkness that moved and his youthful idealism merely ghosts in white dresses that conversed fleetingly with shadows in the night. The abandonment to happiness was unknown to him; there was nothing worth the winning save the humdrum of the daily round -the loneliness without hope of consolation, magnified by the shadow of death that surrounded him in the faces of his beloved tribesmen.

"Your desert watch is over, Khaliq." Ardeth turned to his deputy commander, who nodded and mounted his horse quietly.

"Thank you, my friend. Do not grieve yourself so, Ardeth. Peace be on you." Khaliq inclined his head with deference, his eyes communicating the same weariness that Ardeth felt. The gallop of horses behind him signalled that the next watch had arrived.

He still had to see the O'Connells off at the docks in the early evening. His friends for nearly a decade now; he allowed himself a slight smile at the progress of their friendship, from deep distrust and to unwavering loyalty. The triumph of knowing them as friends had brought a glaring impoverishment in his own life when he saw their thriving family.

"And peace on you," he whispered back with great heaviness, he mounted his own stallion and rode back to camp, the gaping hole in his soul remaining.


	2. Surprise from the O'Connells

The docks had a strange smell, that of the salt of the sea mingled with the musty scent of animals that Evelyn O'Connell was not accustomed to. She peered past men made mysterious by their turbans and scarves, around her husband and brother, around horses and camels, around cars and finally caught sight of the object of interest.

"Ahlan wa Sahlan, Ardeth!" She ran up to him, grasping his hands in gratitude. Her husband, brother and son trudged behind her, uncertain looks on their faces, for the presence of Ardeth more often than not had a tendency to drag them into skirmishes left better unimagined.

"Thank you for coming to see them off." Evy smiled.

Ardeth smiled briefly and returned her greeting in low tones, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Umm...darling, I believe our favourite Medjai doesn't know the full story." Rick O' Connell raised his eyebrows, looking pointedly at his wife.

"Yes, yes of course, Ardeth, you must see, we...well, we have decided to stay, I mean, Rick and I have decided to stay -" Her eyes widened at Ardeth's incredulously panicked expression as all thoughts of noble farewells flew out of the window.

"Jonathan is taking Alex back home for boarding school; whether he wishes to return to Egypt is entirely his own choice." She finished hurriedly in a breath, glancing at Ardeth with hopeful eyes.

"So you have. I thought so just by noticing the drastic reduction of the trunks." He nodded grimly. "Might I ask why?"

"Well," she laughed nervously, "I hope you haven't had enough of us, although it might be a little early to speak given the events in the past few days, we know you're busy and we would like -"

"Honey, get to the point." Rick interrupted.

"Right, right, darling. On my way. What I am saying, Ardeth, is that I've been appointed a fellow at the Cairo Museum the day we returned from Ahm Shere; Rick and I have decided to stay here to erm...to oversee...to oversee," she gestured helplessly and frowned before finishing, "to oversee things."

There. It was out, and Evy felt like she was confessing to a crime that she did not commit. Ridiculous, it was.

But what was there to really object to when his friends chose Egypt instead of England? The crumbling edifice of past ages mattered little when the palette of colours of friendship in his life was added.

But his moody train of thought was interrupted by the tearful sniffles and farewells of the Carnahans and the O'Connells as they prepared to part ways once again.

"...school making a real man out of you, Alex." Rick was saying bravely, patting his son on the back, who nodded sagely.

"Alex, remember what I told you, clean yourself twice a day, despite what your uncle Jonathan might say, remember to cable us for money anytime you need extra, the winter clothes are in the compartment," Evy supplied.

"Mum, Dad, -"

" - and the housekeeper will be in every -"

"...showing the bad boys Dad's special kick and fist -"

"...day except for weekends. I fully expect Jonathan to -"

Ardeth smiled - and the stinging memory of Ahm Shere was temporarily subdued by the easy bantering of his friends. His terrifying but piecemeal vision of blood dimmed in the languid air, where the corporeal feel of daylight, the headiness of the sea air dragged him out of his nightmarish exile.

"...who is boss in the region of..."

"...write us as often as you can and -"

"MUM!"

Evy stopped. "Yes dear?"

"DAD!"

"Alright, alright, son."

Rearing his parents was never an easy task, the boy thought resignedly. The stern parents turned then to Jonathan and repeated their instructions.

With many hugs, an exchange of meagre tears and multiple goodbye kisses, Rick, Evy and Ardeth found themselves waving their goodbyes to a disappearing speck in the horizon, their silhouettes framed by the fiery mirage of the setting sun, bathing them in an unparalleled, unearthly light.

"Isn't there more you wish to tell Ardeth, honey?" Rick questioned her with a raised brow.

"Yes, I believe I do." Evy's expression turned serious as she turned to Ardeth. "The Cairo Museum has informed me today that we are expecting a Bembridge scholar in Egypt in the new few days. I asked them what was really so important that one of their 'greats' would sail down here. And Ardeth, you're not going to like this, I think this certain scholar is a hieroglyphic specialist for the want of any better word, and is authorised to search out sacred sites."

Ardeth paled visibly, blinking twice. He seemed to contemplate an answer but was interrupted hurriedly.

"I don't know more, Ardeth; the museum hasn't told me anything beyond this scholar called Dr. Alex Khalan." she apologised, "but I promise to tell you all I know in the next few days to come."

"Great." Rick muttered. "We trade a young Alex today for another Alex. Since when did that name get so popular? And more trouble in its wake, I guarantee."

Evy glared at him.

"That, my dear sir, is your son. The latter, hopefully, will prove no trouble at all and we will live in the proverbial but simplistic peace for the rest of our lives."

Ardeth shook his head.

"We'll see honey, we'll see." Rick gave her a beatific smile that conveyed otherwise.

Evy turned to Ardeth.

"I'll see you again Ardeth? In a few days? Cairo Museum? Knowing your resourcefulness, Ardeth, you'll find me before I find you."

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. With a swivel of his feet, his black robes mimicking the motion, he bade them goodbye, for now. Hazily, he heard O'Connell muttering "unusually quiet today", imagining a confused face and a scratch of the head with a finger.

Just what was that shiver than rippled from the head downwards when Evy guessed that the new scholar was going to raid more tombs? The thought of protecting more tombs was far from intoxicating; he wondered briefly about being comfortably settled into the smooth existence of a city businessman, growing fat on golden plates of food, and the sybaritic respite that a heavily embroidered divan might offer. Ardeth's hand gripped his scimitar closely. The warrior mounted his horse, and pushed away the nagging idea that he was in much more than what he thought he was in for, the moment the O'Connells announced their decision to stay.


	3. Ramses' Court

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness which may even me felt. So Moses stretch out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days."  
-Exodus 10: 21-22

The 19th Dynasty of Egypt, ca.1279 B.C

She felt only detachment at the defeated slump of his shoulders. Her husband, warrior king and great expansionist, carried a look about him that was one of vulnerability, confusion, and betrayal. Moses had returned, she heard, bringing with him the power of the Hebrew God, and the clashes with Ramses had resulted in the heavens spewing immeasurable and mighty epidemics that Egypt had never seen before. She did not know; Seti I had treated her with the respect due a royal member, but it was her husband and half-brother, the successor to Seti I at age 24 who sentenced her to an existence of silence. Imhotep' s betrayal and Anck-su-namun's treachery had not been forgotten when Ramses had ascended his throne, casting the Egyptian court in a doubtful light, threatening to throw the 19th Dynasty prematurely into another intermediate period. All until Ramses, her brave half-brother, then Viceroy to Seti, quelled revolts again and again in Nubia, in Punt, in Aswan and ruled united Egypt with an expansionist policy under an ambitious agenda.

Nefertiri glided silently under the cool stone floors of the palace; with each passing colossal pillar bringing her nearer to the person she was supposed to pay all her allegiance to, body, soul and spirit. The papyrus fields along the Nile soothed the eyes. Reeds of green and browns, farmers who stood knee-deep in the marshes of the Nile were small figures from the palace, with backs bent, solidly tanned. The lushness of the Egyptian court had lost its novelty. She remembered as a child, her infatuation with the empire that her father was running, chariot races that frequented the dusty streets below, gold medallions freely given out to those who dared challenge and triumph over royal members of the court.

She was fragranced and clean, readied by countless servants whose roving hands accounted for every stray strand of hair and every mark on her face. She readjusted the diadem of beads and gold that encircled her head to hang midway down her back, pushed her shoulders back and tilted her chin, as if these external actions would strengthen her fretful disposition. The netting of gold she wore was covered by translucent cloth; she did not wish to fully take on the appearance her nemesis.

But it was the gait of Anck-su-namun that she imitated as she entered Ramses' court of gold. Confident and unsmiling, it was the pacing of a woman who exuded sensuality with half-lidded eyes. So long ago, she thought, when she spied her father's concubine striding haughtily into his chamber to meet Imhotep. What happened after that had traumatised her for years to come.

_Song'khat jai'tu naaya chet'tha Nefertiri._

_Come to me, my crown jewel Nefertiri._

He beckoned her with an imperious hand, his experienced eye trained on her athletic form and olive skin. Adorned with gold and translucent sheaths, the heavy swirl of rosewood, balsams, and majoram as her shadow, there stood his royal wife, the worshipped opulence of Egypt, if not in the boudoir, at least in public sphere of his rule.

She went to him, keeping her kohl-lined eyes cast downward in barely veiled her growing contempt of him. Seated on the throne of Seti I, a portrait of gold, greens, browns and blacks. Fearsome Medjai warriors with tattooed faces, chests and arms stood unmoving, hair cropped close and short, lined his walls, few other extraordinary concubines seated beneath him, luxuriating in the gentle breeze that large feathers in the hands of servants provided.

"The prophet has already threatened us with death of our infants come sundown," he spat.

Fear's grip on her throat and midsection tightened swiftly, making her want to bowl over. But her impassioned mask did not drop and she stood blinking, raising her head slowly.

"Be not afraid Nefertiri, the time has come for the gods to spar. Egypt is yet in its finest hour. That prophet who invokes the name of the Hebrew God knows not of what he speaks and of what he calls down on our mightier powers."

Ramses II left his throne then and descended, taking up her hands that were anointed with myrrh and spice. He too, was perfumed and kohl-lined, brown skin that was darkened by the sun glinted under firelight; wrinkles etched in his face had only appeared in the past few months.

"My exquisite Queen, will you allow me in your bedchamber tonight?" He spoke unhesitatingly, a voice that embodied all that was Egypt, calling her in essence a worthy mate of the rich and pregnant land Egypt herself.

"The cycle of ripening has not been completed, my King."

She knew of the reproach that she would find in his eyes. What impudence it was to think that a Pharaoh might conquer vast lands and build breath-taking statues but not conquer his own wife's wilful heart.

Head bowed, her body followed as she left the presence of Ramses, but not before he caught sight of the exchange of glances that took place between her and his bodyguard. She was only one who was allowed to do so, as she was told. No one left the presence of the King without his permission except for her. The great Ramses cuckolded by his chief queen, yet granting her many privileges that many other wives did not dare ask for. While his passion for her burned brightly, hers had flamed only briefly, withered into handfuls of ashes that now lay at his feet. Had he wished to recapture her it would have been all too easy; she would be his again, only in body but not in mind and spirit, he knew. Forcibly, once, she was bound in his bed, passive and unmoving, but not before he backhanded her into bodily submission. He knew of her lover, her devotion to him that surely surpassed that of whatever he might have hoped, and yet he still anticipated that she would tire of him one day and return to his bed.

Once, she was proud to have been his chosen chief queen.

_Nefertiri gives me immortality with a kiss; I know now, that this is love,_ he had said all too long ago.

She thought she loved him, her younger brother who fought valiantly and had fathered two sons by the time he was 22. And she, the protector of Seti's bracelet, saw herself a fitting partner for the then-Viceroy and Prince Ramses.

But nothing had prepared her for the passion that was to overwhelm her when a man, a Medjai, her husband's bodyguard had carried her limp body into her chamber when she collapsed from exhaustion after the strenuous sword fight she had with Ramses' other obscure concubine - Enheduana-Rai, the swordswoman who spoke little, the aloof and most mysterious of all the concubines, with features that told of another origin.

She felt bereft of love in Ramses' presence; she had been impulsive in the days of her youth and thought she loved many men much, but in hindsight, she felt she knew nothing of love except that it was the constant object of her attention, one that possessed and blinded her, dashing her against the walls, forcing and stretching her, finally, exhausted in the filthy steps that the builders of the pyramids surely took.

She had barred him from her bed ever since their first child, a daughter, was stillborn. His second concubine had borne him instead the coveted male heir, strong and kicking, while his other wives had also given him strong sons. There was no need of her to provide any for him, although she knew he wished it, and his possession of her, like the way he possessed his states, would be complete.

The love for him that existed no longer had found its place in another. Dreams of the regal queen and the king had now been improvised, showed her that her place was only to be found at the side of a certain Medjai, a forbidden place where she was free to explore her liaisons with him.

The essence of Ra finally touched her people again; she murmured whispers of thanksgiving unto the brilliance that they all took for granted, stretching out her hands in silent greeting to Ra, letting its rays smooth its fingers down her bare arms, imbuing her skin, reminding her spirit of its life-giving nature. Three days had she lain in terror, in pitch blackness and cold, warming herself in the arms of her forbidden lover, none of them comprehending the unrelenting pestilences that had been hailed upon them. With great tenderness she fingered the gold strands in the single plait of her lover, the man whom she esteemed far more than her royal husband, the man which whom she called husband in spirit, the man with whom she now knew would make an excellent father. Nefertiri inhaled the pleasure that came from fleeting moments with her Medjai protector, recognising herself as a woman who was simply satisfied by a man who loved her desperately as she did him.

But it was borrowed time, she knew that instinctively; it would not be long before Ramses' patience ran out for he wanted to possess his queen again, even if it meant a mere physical possession. Djosyn, her fair Medjai warrior-scribe, so precious to her with his brown-goldenish cropped hair and light eyes that sometimes resembled the twilight sky, sometimes the Theban dusk.

She remembered the night after he had carried to her chambers after the duel she had with Enheduana-Rai; he had told her that he was to keep strict watch over the hours of her repose, the amount of sustenance that she was to consume. She had laughed then, scoffed at him and told him proudly that no Medjai had any power over her; they were merely ineffective bodyguards of the helpless Seti, and now the worthless decorations of the omnipotent Ramses. Nefertiri, the protector of the Scorpion bracelet, was capable of defending herself and taking care of her own exhausted and broken body.

Quietly accepting her need for liberty, Djosyn had stood at the periphery of her personal chambers, watching her motions by the day and her slumber by the night. Many times she tossed in her sleep, tender words of regret spilling from her lips that meant only for the ears of her stillborn child. Djosyn heard; the warrior-scribe's heart had contorted in shared grief; he knew the pain of losing family; his only other trusted Medjai brother was Aretas, another warrior-scribe who also lacked the institution of the family.

She had awoken one night, eyes hollow and dry, requesting for Sekhti. It seemed fitting that the journey on the barge to the western shores of Egypt must be undertaken - they would weigh her heart against a feather in the Underworld, she had told him; and only there would she mate with delirium.

It was his panic that had driven him to counsel her frantically otherwise - his duty demanded that she was safe from harm; she was Ramses' opulence and pride. The commodity of a queen, she had spat in reply.

But truth be told, he did not know if his heart allowed him to release a woman whose beauty to him had grown infinitely. You would deny me delirium, Medjai, she had asked him scathingly. Nei, nei, he had urgently cried out. Let me alleviate your pain, beloved Queen; from tonight there will only be sweetness.

That night as Nefertiri slept, unresisting, with his body as her covering, wrapped in his gentleness she did not know Medjai possessed.

Life had not come back from Sekhti; it was regained in his arms. She turned now, and faced him.

"I am afraid, Djosyn. You heard what the Pharaoh said about the coming deaths of infants."

His hands moved over her belly in a protective gesture. "I am helpless against forces that are greater than us Nefertiri."

She glanced at the tattoo emblazoned on his forearms and the ones that were carved onto his chest. The Protectors of the ancients and of the eternal.

"You know that what I now carry in me, we love it beyond measure," she told him in despair.

"But what we have for now, is to be savoured with the most voracious of tongues, no?"

"Yes, yes, it is, Djosyn."

He hummed an old tune then, far more ancient than any of the dynasties that Egypt boasted; he said he had learned the lores of the ancients, and in his fascination committed to memory all of their songs. And in their song that he sang in low tones, she found a comfort that erased the turmoil of the weeks.

_Is my heart not softened by your love-longing for me?_  
My heart is glad beyond all measure.  
I will not tear myself away,  
My heart is glad beyond measure.  
I rise up rejoicing in the morning,  
Your nearness means to me health and strength.  
My heart is glad beyond all measure. 


	4. The Meeting With Dr Khalan

1931, Cairo, Egypt

The busy morning, the bustle of Cairo -how she missed it, since the days she worked as a librarian. Dr. Almighty Bembridge was to arrive today. Evy heaved a sigh. At least she did not have to pick this doctor up from the docks -she figured that she did have quite enough of doctors from the time Alex was born, to the time she moved back to England to pursue doctorate studies, from the time she had to negotiate with academics for her current position in Cairo. She took a deep breath -and promptly choked in a cloud of dust when an unsuspecting car zoomed past her.

Entering with Cairo Museum with light steps, smoothing her long skirt and her white blouse, accompanied by nostalgia of her being a librarian once again, she entered her office to find Dr. Whitsun at her door.

"Good morning, Dr O' Connell. Bright and ready today, I see, to meet and welcome our -" He boomed out.

"Would you like a cup of coffee, Dr Whitsun?" Evy supplied quickly, not yet quite willing to talk about Dr. Almighty Bembridge when it seemed that the entire Cairo Museum was buzzing with the news of this new arrival.

"Oh no, no, Dr O'Connell. The Cairo Museum has made Dr. Alex Khalan your responsibility, aren't you pleased?" He said with an ironic smile on his face. "By the way, our scholar has just arrived. I'll give him to your room." He walked out and closed her door, leaving Evy to wonder what he meant by that. But she didn't have much time for that.

Ardeth knocked only a few seconds after Dr Whitsun left and slipped himself inside, an imposing presence of black among her sea of books and papers.

"Ardeth! I hear that news travels fast. So you are here to meet Dr Khalan as well, I gather? I'm going to meet him now."

"It was my intention to let you communicate first," Ardeth said heavily, refusing the miniscule place that she offered him for a seat. "I am sorry; I did not know that he was going to arrive in the morning. The museum has been quite alive with the news of his arrival that it is quite impossible to keep secrets, even if one wanted to."

Evy exhaled in exasperation. "Why is everyone simply losing their heads? It isn't as if -"

A knock on the door interrupted her tirade.

"I am sorry Ardeth, looks like you are going to meet him along with me. Look, I'll introduce you as an important patron of our museum alright?" She whispered conspiratorially before realising the foolishness of her words. Patron?

She swung open the door to find a confused woman glancing up at her salutations printed on her door.

"Good morning!" Evy chirped immediately, not missing a beat. "You must Dr. Khalan's secretary? I see that he's sent you to look me up first before he decided to -"

"Dr O' Connell?" The woman smiled tentatively and held out her hand. "I'm Alexandra Khalan. I apologise for giving you any shock. People always refer to my shorter name -as Alex Khalan."

Evy wanted to kick herself. Of course an academic could be a woman also! She gave that woman another once over, noting with great surprise that she wasn't all that old, perhaps nearing thirty, dressed against all women's fashion, clad in a suit, black hair tied up in a bun. Her eyes - brownish grey with golden flecks, an olive skin tone, but with no doubt a British accent. Of mixed parentage then.

"Where are my manners, Dr Khalan? Please, do come in. I'm sorry for the mess you see here, you see, I didn't think that you were going to arrive in the morning," Evy tried frantically to clear up some space. "And yes," she finally straightened up, "Please, I'd like you to meet Ardeth Bay, a very important person who has exceptionally close ties with the Cairo Museum." Evy congratulated herself for thinking fast as she watched Dr Khalan extend her hand again to Ardeth.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Bay."

"Dr Khalan." Ardeth bowed his head slightly and took her hand, which she promptly snatched out of his the moment the point of contact was made.

Alexandra Khalan could not explain what in the world just passed. Neither could Ardeth Bay. Evy watched in fascination as they shrank from each other's touch, at that simple handshake, for heaven's sake! But before anyone could move further, another knock on the door sounded.

"Please, come in." Evy called out.

"Honey, it's me I wanted -" Rick O'Connell looked slightly embarrassed at interrupting the tiny party of people that had congregated in her office.

"Not at all. This is my husband, Rick O' Connell." Evy breathed, "And Rick, this is Dr Alexan-dra Khalan." A small smile played on her lips as she introduced the doctor to her husband.

"Ah. Nice to meet you, Dr. Khalan."

"Well, it seems that my arrival is truly unexpected." Alexandra Khalan remarked. "I will return later at our stipulated time, Dr. O'Connell." Without another word, she turned and strode through the doorway, her strides confident, back upright, a contradiction to the panicked emotions that were already apparent on her face.

"As frosty as a winter morning. Surprised me on both counts. First, who would have thought we traded Alex for a woman, second, who would have thought she was British!" Rick supplied a verdict immediately.

"Rick, surely you understand that woman is tired from that boat ride!" Evy was beginning to feel a kinship with a fellow female academic, frosty or no. "But you're right there Rick, she doesn't look quite Western to me, but who am I to mention, darling, me being half-Egyptian and all -"

She was interrupted by Ardeth's agitated footsteps in her office, whatever space it afforded him to pace.

"There is something about that woman which is not quite right." The words came through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I quite noticed both your expressions when you shook hands, if you decided to call that a hand-shake, Ardeth." Evy eyed him curiously. "Care to explain what was that all about?"

"I do not know myself, Evy, so I cannot tell you, but it was a blinding flash of white that shook me at that touch. The contact was broken immediately after, praise be to Allah."

"Ardeth Bay struck by lightning! Or should we say the spark of a certain type of electricity, hmm?" Rick looked insolently at his warrior friend with half-closed lids, eliciting a dark frown from the remaining occupants of the room.

"Nothing that you have not ever experienced, O'Connell." Came the cool reply. Turning to Evy, her said, "I will go now. But I will come by your house tonight." Ardeth strode out of the door in a similar manner to Alex Khalan, leaving the O'Connells speechless.

Evy blinked, Rick went through a series of motions that started from a scratch of his head and ended with a frown.

"That man only knows how to give orders." Rick snorted. "I'd like to see the day he acquires a wife."

That woman, with her Mediterranean features and her glacial touch - Ardeth Bay felt the unpleasant and bitter taste of fear that ran through his spine at the thought of her. Somehow he knew she had something to do with the blood that flowed down a silvery tip of a knife that flashed before his eyes in his unconscious hours.

Drops of blood that dripped down a silvery sharp edge which materialised into an ornate blade.

Intricate carvings that appeared to be the creed of the ancient Medjai themselves; he could not be too sure. And without any doubt he knew that those drops of blood belonged to him; and the blade from which blood had rolled off had belonged to him.

Slain by his own blade and weapon -what had rendered him so helpless that he would shed his own blood by his own knife?

The dream's tentacles caught a viselike hold of him while he rode his horse tenaciously back to camp. It was difficult to wish it away when it was determined to part of him that insisted it was integral to his survival.

He had seen the unusual colour of her eyes and the composite colours of her hair did not escape his sight. But he caught her in an unexpected moment during that brief and electric handshake -her lovely eyes - cusp of the Nile's glory on an overcast day that ran through the golden sand and brown bedrocks - that widened in great alarm as she shrank back from him. The electric field around them shuddered and clamped shut once again, unwilling to allay his frustration.

The state of agitation in which she threw him was sickeningly real and cold to the touch; the lack of multiplicity of gestures on her part had surprised and petrified him. She was in no way any remarkable woman, wasn't she? What distress she had caused him? Ardeth Bay was no man who swayed like a willow to any woman; he thought that the day he became slave to frivolous emotions would be the day he also yielded to one who had the complex mastery of his soul.


	5. The Passover

"And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead."  
-Exodus 12: 29-30

The 19th Dynasty of Egypt, ca.1279 B.C

The hard strides of the messenger had echoed down her bedchamber slightly over an hour ago; the harem Ramses kept was filled with less than content women, whose elaborate dressing did no justice to their lack of activities that were needed for a busy mind. Peshet turned her lips up and rejoined the women of the harem; honoured that the King had sent a messenger to tell her that she was to make time for him that night.

_Oh ladies, tonight I join myself to a god of Egypt,_ she tittered elatedly. _My son, Yuya, his firstborn son, his successor!_

Enheduana-Rai looked up briefly and kept her own counsel. Her exalted position as a 'wife' of the pharaoh was not something she gloried in; others boasted in it, some believed that a little more of immortality flowed through their veins after a night with Ramses.

Ra never gave one more than the sun what rose from the east and set in the west. Immortality would be better thought about when one was nearing the Afterlife.

They were merely ignorant women, she observed.

Ramses was no more than a man of flesh and blood, whose luck with the gods was to run out soon. His decision to take a concubine to bed was solely executed out of nonchalance; did not the Hebrew God warn him that the greatest of all catastrophes was to come? Could she believe the Hebrews and their plagues? She did not know, for Egypt's turmoil was felt very badly all over the land.

Rai, they had added that name after her own given name, the highest of all names after Ra himself, they said, unable to perfect the sounds of her native language to call her Enheduana. Ramses was a shrewd fool; she knew his desire to rally Egypt under his great name; relics of old were simply taken over by him when he added his cartouche over the builder's signature.

There was no one truly honourable in the royal court, she thought bitterly.

****

People usually danced after a war, celebrated with their wives and children, did they not, Nefertiri asked herself. Men, survivors from harsh campaigns, free from the burden of being frightened and frayed, dance with abandon; women and children who welcomed these men home, dance with rejoicing.

Will Egypt dance again after the skirmishes with the Hebrews and their God?

Nefertiri stood at her balcony that overlooked the precious ponds of water; precious fountains of life that the awed Egyptians revered. The greenery of the palace and its abundance of waters she had grown up with was a sight she was so accustomed to; a life as a commoner was unimaginable.

There was no time to amuse herself with the jagged shadows that the firelight produced; the embellished richness of her chamber was accentuated by the black of the night and the strange chill in the air. Her ankles were swollen; it seemed that nothing that night would triumph over her fatigue; Djosyn had unwillingly admitted that he would have to leave her bedside for the first time since he was stationed there. So she retreated from her balcony to walk slowly to her bed. He spoke gravely to her last night and she feared she was going to lose him.

_Pharaoh has called a council - he thinks of releasing the Hebrews to their leader but altered his course once more._

_Does this mean anything to you? To us?,_ she had questioned him urgently.

_I am a scribe, in addition to being a warrior, my beloved Queen, it is my duty to protect the history of the Medjai too -there are only half of the warriors versed in the ancient tongue of the Hittites, the Sumers, the Hebrew, who are also scribes to the Pharaoh; we also serve another purpose, to record for our own history. Do you understand me, Nefertiri? I - Aretas as my second, hold the secret of the Medjai - we must not - we cannot fail. Do not underestimate my duty._

He held her at arm's length, eyes diligently trained on hers and for a wilful moment, she wanted to bolt from him. It seemed that she suddenly knew so little about him.

She did not know what he was asking of her then. To not fail? At what?

_Do you not care then, that something may happen tonight?_ Nefertiri had implored in desperation.

_I do, Nefertiri, you know I do. But do not ask of me- please do not tear me away from my duty._

He had left then, not looking back, praying to the gods that his breaking heart was concealed from his external appearance.

Thus for a long time, she mused over her future, vacillating between alarm and resignation. The loss of a daughter merely twelve moon cycles before, torment that seemed to pile layer after layer in front of her very eyes now threatened to return. It was only too easy to lament the loss of lips and hands when they have grown familiar.

The air was definitely chilly, the breath of the night whispering the ominous. It inhaled the remnants of Ra's essence and returned it with the exhalation of unbearable coldness.

Egypt was unusually silent and had been for the past months, ever since the pestilence hailed down from the sky. Crops that were made inedible, strange diseases that struck the smooth olive skin tones became a difficult sight to behold, and people milling around aimlessly with blood dripping out of their lips when water finally turned to blood. Egypt was bloodstained; she had never before seen the palaces streaked with dried blood; wails and moans covered every portion of the ground it seemed, as the commons rebelled against Ramses' ineffectiveness for failing to put a halt to the might of the Hebrew God. Priests invoked the name of Ptah, Isis, Orisis, gods' whose might seemed then too miniscule to return the blood to water or heal the skin diseases.

The skies had told her that dawn was to arrive in 4 hours, still she could not rest. But the sudden scream from Peshet sent her heart racing, and she sat up quickly from the position of repose, ignoring the wave of dizziness that grasp her head. It was pure dread that made her clutch the sides of her gossamer white gown as she made her way towards other woman's quarters; it was also intuition that told her that the whole of Egypt would be shaken that night.

Her nightgown was wet and it made her more prominent than usual- the white cotton was soaked through, clinging to her thighs and calves, yet she still hurried along the vast floor of her chambers, reaching the entrance with mutters of thanks to the gods.

But in her immense rush, she tripped over the steps that separated her chamber from the others. Incapable of stopping her fall until the first landing, her arms shielded her midsection as she struggled to regain her balance. The transformation from queen to spectre was almost complete, horrifying to sight, almost unrecognisable to anyone save for those who recognised her strength and determination unique to Nefertiri.

Timid souls would have expired, but Nefertiri's cheerlessness still exceeded the courage of brave men, the fabricated world of the Egyptian Empire crumbled before her eyes, and she become an anonymous woman, struggling to save only herself now that the life inside of her was choked out.

Instinct made her get up but not before she saw the lower half of her nightgown stained doubly with liquid and blood and the gripping pain that shot through her abdomen forced her to remain in a lying position. A tune snaked into her mind as she bled her life's blood out. 

_Sukh'chet huy Mene'wa Het  
Nu'uk Ka kat'ankh Ashet_

_I will not tear myself away,  
My heart is glad beyond all measure _

That was all of Djosyn's song that she remembered and it was strange that it should echo through her ears now as the pain became too much to bear -he was not around, not even a shadow of his presence that reassured her; was he lost somewhere in an important Medjai council, was he asleep somewhere apart from her?

The cries were increasing, pressing in from all sides of her ears, Nefertiri dimly heard. Or were they her own cries? It was her own painful moans, she realised and her hand of its own accord tried to curb the bleeding that now streamed freely from her thighs, fanning out in distributaries down the stairs.

Her vision was filled with red -in her haste to wipe her brow she had brought up her own bloodstained hands to her eyes and her face; Nefertiri wanted to heave both tears and screams, knowing the once capable woman who was herself now seemed immobile and paralysed to save her very own flesh.

_Djosyn, I was right,_ her mind yelled as she fought for consciousness, and crawled her slow way over to a pillar, staying partially hidden by a billowing drape.

There were shouts heard in the background, guards of the imperial palace rushed past her with the Pharaoh's Medjai to rectify some emergent wrong as Nefertiri battled once more for consciousness, only to find a slight weight that was placed on her shoulder.

Enheduana-Rai.

It was compassion that she glimpsed in the eyes of her duelling partner, an emotion that was so alien to her after the loss of her daughter and now, the loss of another precious child.

This woman, with her strange eyes and strange hair, was more than a welcome sight.

"Egypt is..? Enhe..Rai?" It was all she could manage.

"My Queen, you are grievously hurt. I will gather my supplies and help you back to your chamber."

"Djosyn, call him!" Nefertiri could only manage those words before losing consciousness against the chill of the night.

The younger woman paused in her stride and wondered briefly about the connection between the chief warrior-scribe and this lovely queen, before hurrying to her own chambers.

"What have you done to the Queen?" A hand grabbed the concubine roughly and spun her around.

"Nothing," she retorted harshly, before glancing upwards to see the chief warrior-scribe and his second, Aretas. "She is hurt, I only meant to help her, if you do not believe me, there is nothing that I can do to save your lover! If you do not let me go now, she will most certainly be lost to you!"

There was something in her words that made Djosyn and Aretas believe her, for their countenances softened slightly as they released their iron grip on her shoulders. Djosyn's face showed worry; he needed to go to Nefertiri but was restrained gently but Aretas' hand this time.

"We will go, my friend. Let us follow her first and help her with all the supplies that she needs."

Djosyn nodded with great difficulty;the queen of Egypt, the queen of his heart lay somewhere dying.

Enheduana-Rai had only time to grab a few yards of clean cotton before the men rushed her toward the spot where they last found Nefertiri. But she was gone; they stared numbly at the spot where she last lay, her shape carved out in blood.

It was unfortunate that such a time had made them unwilling allies as they instantly realised that Nefertiri had been taken away by Ramses' loyal Viceroy and uncle, Sahure.


	6. The Meeting with the King

Now it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people; and they said, "Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" So he made ready his chariot and took his people with him. Also, he took six hundred choice chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt with captains over every one of them. And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel; and the children of Israel went out with boldness.  
-Exodus 14: 5-8

The 19th Dynasty of Egypt, ca.1279 B.C

The steps of Sahure were heavy and uneven as he dragged the semi-conscious Nefertiri to the throne room. His face was triumphant and contemptuous, as he unhanded the queen roughly in the presence of an already agitated Ramses.

"My Lord," he bowed low and retreated, giving the appearance of one who valued deference and loyalty, sweeping his arm in an arc of mere flourish.

"There is unrest in the land of Egypt, Sahure. I cannot sleep tonight." 

Ramses' hands were clasped behind his back, as he stood motionless, tense on the balcony of the throne room. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and shut his eyes, in no hurry to face his Viceroy. They all could wait, he thought, surely they understood what the ten plagues had meant to Egypt and how much strain it was placing on him.

The unusual sounds behind him made him turn around. His Viceroy had thrown someone onto the ground; the otherworldly sheen of the throne room seemed to dim beneath the all too human picture of a woman in a white nightgown stained a dull red.

"Viceroy?" He demanded an explanation.

"I bring her to you. See for yourself, or see her for the traitor that she is!"

Ramses walked forward, and stopped when he caught sight of his bleeding queen, a wretched sight, curled on his floor.

"How is it that the Opulence of Egypt is reduced to a heap of tears and blood," he asked with great shock, "Are you well afflicted with the same ailment that now plagues Egypt?"

She could not move; her strength was now spent and all that she could do was simply to breathe, lids half-closed from the exertion and the great hurt that still trembled within her body. She could not stop the grief that threatened to overwhelm her nor the pain that wrestled with the same grief to black her out.

Ramses stared at her almost unpityingly; made no move to help her up; she needed a healer fast, but not before she heard what he had to say to her.

He turned and paced then, feeling the undying love he had previously proclaimed for Nefertiri dissipating with the contraction in his chest. He whirled then, brow furrowed with anger as the realisation dawned on him, when he realised the extent of his folly.

"You carry the child of your Medjai lover, do you not?" His tortured breath exhaled through gritted teeth as he walked over to her and tilted her chin up savagely, now taking satisfaction that she was indeed awake. "Do you mean to make a fool out of me - I knew about your lover, Nefertiri but I chose to close my eyes to it, but now that you lie before me with his child, or what is left of it!"

"Your Highness, please," was all that she could plead from him, her breathing becoming more laboured as he spoke on, ignoring her distress.

"I gave you my throne too, Nefertiri. Did I not? Was is not just the day before that I pleaded and begged to be let into your chamber?"

Ramses' anger might have been frightening, but it was a devastating sight to face alone.

"I offered you to come share my riches; I bestowed on you privileges that you did not appreciate and took advantage of; I had hoped that you might return to me one day, and you have; you return to me carrying someone else's flesh and blood - do you mean to taunt me with your resolve never to reign as my queen? To tell me that you are spoken for already, in the cruellest possible manner?"

She had never seen that stone-cold look on Ramses before. Weakly, she wondered if that was the face that all warriors applied in their battles, when they shouted in attack, or when they screamed in defeat. Her father, Seti I had worn it as he rode through the gates of the Theban city, leading his grand armies out to war, to conquer; he had also worn it when he returned in defeat.

There was no containing what a man might do when he was under the crazed spell of rage.

Nefertiri knew then, that she was afraid of him - the fearsome Ramses whose wrath was now turned on her; there did not seem to be a more formidable sight than an enraged man whose wife had humiliated him.

"Your persistence in disobeying me, my queen, is starting to annoy me. That the passion I felt -translated into the rage I now feel was never able to find its alleviation in those curves of yours! Youth, beauty, virility are all my possessions, or have you never acknowledged that?"

Words were weapons -Ramses was all too familiar with that - the memory of performing the Hittite torture ritual was fresh as the young shoots of the papyrus that grew along the Nile - and out poured words upon Nefertiri's crown, zealously, swelling with prejudice, vanity, rage and disappointment.

"Now you are before me, bleeding and helpless and I find myself, in an ironic twist of fate; once I begged you to let me into your life, your bed, to become a man for you; now, Nefertiri, are you begging for me to spare your life?"

He had kept his lips compressed far too long; his mouth tightened, his face seemed to shrink from his rage and his hands trembled with the rare displays of true emotion she had ever seen.

Ramses was a man, not a god, Nefertiri knew; it never seemed so blatantly noticeable until now - she thought of the ancient proverb - what is squeezed forth from a man in the worst of times is his true nature, wondering if Djosyn belonged to those who had nothing but dryness in him.

She had no explanation, she knew, but did not - could not regret her nights spent with Djosyn, who showered her with more concern and care than Ramses had ever done. The end seemed near - if she did not die from bleeding, Ramses would show no mercy to her and execute her in the punishment of common criminals.

But a life with Ramses was not what she craved for any longer. His mercy was better rejected and the punishment accepted.

Nefertiri waited; it was not long in coming.

Ramses seemed to change then, before her very eyes; his presence magnified a hundredfold as he straightened his back and threw back his head in defiance; the trembling of his body stopped and he seemed to compose himself, a cavernous difference from the man he allowed her to glimpse mere moments ago.

"Viceroy Sahure, see to it that she is beheaded," he said softly.

Her head slumped in onto the floor, knowing she was powerless to stop any decree of Ramses; she was now a stranger to him, no better than a chattel from his conquered lands to be tossed away when he wished.

_Djosyn, I wish you would come;_ that was her only silent plea.

Sahure inclined his head in acknowledgement and placed his sword to Nefertiri's neck - by experience he knew that his blade was far too blunt and small to take her head off in a single stroke; he would be slashing at her neck until tendons snapped and her throat burst-a slow painful death that was only meant for the worst of criminals.

He grabbed her hair and held it atop her head, slicing the mane of brown locks in a grand gesture and threw them to the side of the chamber, branding her a humiliated queen, leaving jagged strands that fell unevenly by the side of her bloodied right cheek.

Readying his blade, savouring its weight in his hands never more during executions, he lifted it once more and turned in the direction of a sudden sound that emanated from the rear end of the throne room. It was a heavily panting messenger who fell at Ramses feet.

"Your Highness," his words muffled by his prostration, not daring to catch Ramses' reaction, "Your firstborn too, has been taken away from you."

The meaning was clearer than the dawn that was awakening upon them, and in shock Sahure's blade dropped limply from his hand.

Ramses stood over Nefertiri, expressionless.

"Do you mean to mock me, Nefertiri? Now the breath from my firstborn Yuya is gone," he said harshly, "and all Egypt wails because their fates mirror mine."

What miracle of the gods was this that he had discovered the death of his firstborn when she was about to face her own? Nefertiri lay face down, unable to stop the tears of relief that formed painfully at the corners of her eyes.

"Leave her. Follow me. She will be picked up by whoever deems her fit."

Ramses strode out of the throne room, the messenger running ahead, Sahure turning his head regretfully toward Nefertiri for the last time before hurrying after the Pharaoh.

**********

Djosyn could not control himself, shaking, exhaling erratically as he watched Nefertiri tortured in her already wounded state. Her shrillest cry of agony would have been less frightening than her obstinate silence in the presence of Ramses.

He was restrained solely by Aretas' hand, its pressure both a comfort and a warning. But it did not prepare him for the sword of Sahure that was placed at her neck and then moved upwards to slice that mane that had caressed him during nights of gratification.

It was the end, he had thought then, but by some miracle of the gods Ramses and Sahure had left Nefertiri to attend to his firstborn.

She was silent when he ran to her, tears were still held in check in those wide eyes of hers, a testament to her refusal to let Ramses see her weakness.

"Do not lift her," Enheduana-Rai said sharply, startling both men. "You may involuntarily hurt her, even though you do not mean to. Let me have a look at her, but we must hurry, before Pharaoh's men return."

Nefertiri felt surprisingly gentle fingers lift her nightgown to probe her thighs and stomach; initial tinge of embarrassment flitted away when she felt cotton sheets placed against her. Warm hands, unmindful of the blood that she had painted on herself were placed on her forehead, soothing her ruptured spirit and she felt herself sink into oblivion.

"Thank your gods, she has stopped bleeding," Enheduana-Rai announced grimly. "We must go, bring her to her chambers."

Djosyn was afraid, very frightened of causing her further hurt, berating himself for the conversation they had only a few hours ago, where he left her side to join the other warrior-scribes. He knelt over her, scrutinising the pallor of her skin and felt the now familiar curl of rage that cloaked him.

"It is not the time for anger, Djosyn." Enheduana-Rai's voice came softly from his side and he realised that she was also kneeling over the injured queen, her eyes urging him to carry his lover away.

He nodded and with nerves of steel, lifted her as gently as he could, and strode to her chamber, laying her on her bed, angry once more at his own helplessness.

"Will you leave us now, Medjai?" The strange looking woman seemed to beseech them. "Will you trust me to return the queen to you alive?"

"Listen," Aretas spoke to her for the first time since the trauma began its run on Egypt, "I do not know who you are. You are a concubine of the King, a mere conquest. I do not know why you are suddenly embroiled in the affairs that are better left in the quiet and the secret. You now offer to restore Nefertiri, so do it. But if the queen does not live, neither will you."

Enheduana-Rai stiffened.

"I hear you Medjai, very clearly. You will know by the next moon if she is to live or not."

The doors were shut behind them loudly, as if Enheduana-Rai found a pleasure for keeping them out. The queen was in bad shape, she knew, as she began the burdensome task of bodily restoration.

Outside, the atmosphere of gloom was pervasive both in Egypt and on the face of a warrior who personally attested to it.

"I did not expect this," Djosyn finally said. "Aretas, you know that is all I can say, although there is so much more I wish -"

"Then do not say anymore." If Aretas was stunned the extent of Djosyn's relationship with the chief queen, he did not show it.

"You do not trust that woman." Djosyn's reply was a statement, not a question.

"You are right, my friend. I do not; have you not seen the queen and her in a duel," Aretas pointed out.

"She is Nefertiri's hope, Aretas," Djosyn looked Aretas in the eye seriously, "if she is not one we can trust, there is no one else."

"We wait then," Aretas agreed reluctantly after a pause.

Djosyn looked at his stalwart companion, hesitating to pose his next question. 

"Do you think of me any less then, my friend? Have I been foolish beyond measure? Is this a mistake that I ought never to have made? Tell me, Aretas. Your thoughts and estimation are most important to me."

Aretas did not answer again for a while; a man had to measure his words carefully when one dealt with the emotionally volatile. How was he to comfort a man who has paid dearly for his actions, who had acted the same way he would have too? Who then, was he to discount that man was never insusceptible to fickle emotions and the tides of passion that rose and fell with the sun? How could he then, re-create the complexity of a man, or anyone, who stood as his friend and fellow warrior-scribe and offer it on a clearly demarcated platter back to him?

Djosyn was looking sightlessly ahead; the forbidden desire for a queen was now being repaid in full.

"I do not know, Djosyn; what I say now to you may find its way back against me another time, if not now, in some other lifetime to come perhaps. I cannot speak of human weakness so easily, Aretas said, not without difficulty. But what you now have may you call them your own and keep your own too. As for now, we wait. I will tarry with you; the other matters are of secondary importance."

"I thank you, Aretas." He did not think anymore was needed.

But soon the economy of the Egyptian royalty took precedence over the worry etched on their faces. It was the same thought that ran through minds as they sat in silent but restless vigil.

What now, was awaiting Egypt?


	7. Aftermath

Did you call me, or did I wake?  
Did you touch me, why am I terrified?  
Did not some god pass by, for my limbs are numb with fear?  
The heavens roared and the earth roared again, daylight failed and darkness fell, lightning flashed, fire blazed out, the clouds lowered, they rained down death.  
-The Epic of Gilgamesh

It was surely a trick of the mind that the chaos of the Passover had begun only last night. The lightening of the sky reminded her that they were only few hours past the horror that had blanketed Egypt.

Then the brightness departed, the fire went out, and all was turned to ashes fallen about us, she recalled the epic of Gilgamesh that was recited to her when she was a child.

Egypt was grey and gloomy; it was as if Ra himself had fled from the Hebrew God, and withheld his blessings on the Nile until he saw fit to regain his courage to show his face to his people.

The Hebrews were leaving, taking along with them half of Egypt's riches. Ramses had finally bowed in defeat, Enheduana-Rai saw numbly. The outflow of bullion and treasure would threaten their reserves; with the lack of wealth, Egypt would lose her standing as a northern power and so would the people face a catastrophic return of uncertainty.

She stepped away from the queen's balcony, fatigue written on her forehead, exhaustion lining her eyes. Nefertiri's broken body was a daunting task for any healer. The child was then, a product of destiny's cruel laughter.

"I am sorry that you could not save your child," she had whispered to the agitated queen as Nefertiri drifted in and out of consciousness. "But I will try my best to return life back into your veins. Do not fight it; there will be many more children if you fight and live."

"No, there was only this child, and he was not meant to live," the queen had replied with closed eyes, surprising Enheduana-Rai with her strength. She had heard about the queen's legendary grace and determination, but only saw it for herself now.

"The child had died when the women screamed, Enheduana-Rai. He was already dead when I fell down the steps. My body thought to discharge his remains then," the queen had fallen unconscious once more.

"Think, now, my Queen! Think of the man whom you had the child with, is he not worth living for?" Her urges were frantic; her patient needed to live, for the sake of her Medjai lover.

Nefertiri's weak pulse had grown stronger, to her relief. She prayed that no one would disturb them for the next few days, as Egypt rebuilt itself.

She opened the chamber doors, their swinging motion revealing bit by bit the profile of the ever watchful warriors. They stood when they saw her, Djosyn's usually upright body hunched with the agony that had clawed at him during his vigil.

"The queen is resting. She is pale, having lost much blood. It looks like she will live, but I cannot tell for certain until the next moon. I will check back on her from time to time," she told Djosyn, and avoiding the forceful gaze of Aretas, she left the warriors and disappeared down an empty corridor.

"She is now yours. Attend to her," Aretas nodded in the direction of the bed on which Nefertiri rested.

Djosyn walked in wordlessly, giving no heed that he was walking into the queen's chamber in daylight, no longer as a bodyguard who saw to her sustenance or her safety, but as a man who badly needed reassurance that the woman who meant much to him shared his same sentiments and was alive to hear him whisper whose words.

Her face was turned away from the sheets of blood that still littered the cold stone floor after Enheduana-Rai's ministrations; the servants were busy tending to the preparation of Yuya's journey to the afterlife, to attend to her. There was a dull throb and an emptiness in her middle, which she did not think would unsettle her necessarily; how was it that she was made more aware of what she had lost than when something was in her possession?

She did not have her child, and she was not sure if she still had Djosyn. He could not possibly hate her for losing the child, did he? Her child, she thought sombrely, were to take after his father, should he have lived - fair of hair, clear, light eyes - no, it would bring her indescribable rage and grief if Djosyn had left her abruptly because she had lost a part of them.

How queer it is, that I now draw comfort and strength from this one who had displayed such hostile emotions towards me, Nefertiri mused, remembering the urgent but musical low voice that had insisted that she held on the cord that brought her back to a reality that was composed of dimensions, a place of torture and pain but also of rapture and deep joy. 

Her thoughts turned to the younger woman who seemed to be so many things at once - healer, swordswoman, concubine; she was deeply ashamed to have shallowly assumed the worst of her. Yet the added angle to Enheduana-Rai made her all the more appealing and shrouded her entire form a greater mystery. Who was she?

She did not realise that she had muttered that thought aloud, and the resonance by which her question echoed back to her made her turn around.

"Who were you thinking of?" Djosyn stood at her bedside, his face a myriad of emotions that she found breathtaking, and in that second she knew he was also a man who suffered complex emotions, and not a personal guard whom she had succumbed to.

"The healer," she said finally. "Enheduana-Rai, I was thinking of her and all her perplexing actions that fail to allow me to call her someone I know. She slips through my thoughts."

Nefertiri looked up at him, eyes shielded by hooded emotions.

Djosyn stiffened as well, wondering if there was any barrier that she had erected between them, when in truth she watched him for the very same reaction, wanting to proposition herself as defensive, for she had perceived that he might now look at her aversely.

But all that Nefertiri saw was a regret that spoke the loudest of the emotions on his face, melting the slightest doubts that she carried. He touched her face softly, running his fingers through her short and uneven hair, reminding her steadfastly that her beauty was no less diminished by her externalities.

"The child mattered not as much to me as your life, Nefertiri," he told her then. "There will be others."

And that drew from her a strangled sob. Pain, that the child was of less importance and elation that she meant everything to him, more than the child.

Finally, she seized him by the arm, holding tight, expressing nothing else but a feeble cry, floundering in the deep abyss, whence love emerges pale in the all too menacing shadow of death. He turned quickly to her then, offering all that he had in his body, stroking her back in infinite circles. Enfolded in their close embrace, no words could prolong the silence that spoke of the return to an existence that was going to be nothing short of hell.

She could only offer him her broken self - but it was all that he wanted - a trembling mouth filled with tormented love, remorse and regret, and so lost was he in contemplating her and their vanished child that he was only vaguely aware of her tears that had run down the defined muscles of his arm.

There will be no more children, as she had told Enheduana-Rai, but she now failed to tell him the same thing as they stayed together for as long as she needed. Why had she known that with a great conviction was still lost to her? It was a revelation that oddly did not bring much pain; maybe her body was already so numbed from it that she did not think anymore would have made any difference then.

In the bright light, her noble face was in disarray; her waxen skin was now vibrant where the scorching tears had dried in their rivulets.

The city over the mountains that cracked in the violent midnight air was now of secondary importance to him. Those who were living were now dead, those who died were even more deeply buried in their graves and those who lived -he thought, those who live could only expect to die.

Chants now echoed hollowly around the palace walls as Egypt remembered its dead - it was an unmistakably dismal sound; prayers said by priests on behalf of those who died by the breath of the Angel of Death, prayers that were said in hope the souls would reach the Afterlife. The complex ritual of mourning for the thousands who were Egypt's next generation had begun.


	8. The New Doctor

1931, Cairo, Egypt

Alexandra Khalan wiped her brow in frustration as she sat among her trunks in the tiny Cairo Hotel. She refused a bigger one, refused bodyguards that the Cairo Museum had assigned to her, hated the fanfare that accompanied her arrival and hated the whispers about her that circulated in the Museum. She hurriedly stripped off her heavy linen jacket and replaced it with a white nondescript shirt of thin and lightweight Egyptian cotton and combed out her severely cut shoulder-length hair, exhaling heavily.

The council meeting is now closed, the president of Bembridge had nodded in satisfaction.

_Upon the unanimous vote, it is agreed that Dr. Alexandra Khalan will undertake the task of retrieving the scrolls._

She didn't know why she was the first eager volunteer to raise her hand back in London when the scholars had met to discuss (or argue) over who should be sent to hot, dusty Egypt to oversee the excavation of the scrolls. And it was very right to say too that no one else was willing to brave the sands of Egypt; the old, distinguished gentlemen, many of whom walked with difficulty looked relieved at having the opportunity to send the youngest Bembridge member out into the wilderness, as they called it, while some others gaped at her audacity at requesting to go for an expedition given she had only obtained her doctorate only very recently.

Then she had felt triumphant; the expedition would do wonders for her bargaining power in the academic world, she thought.

Eager to prove that she was no less worthy of their cause, and because she was the only proficient reader of hieroglyphs and language specialist of the ancient Middle-East, she packed her bags almost immediately, without seconds thoughts that she was to stay indefinitely.

Just watch this young scholar - barely thirty years old - they probably thought, let's see if she is able to hold her own against the overwhelming research, nay, the amount of dust itself that flies up from the Egyptian ground!

Alex sighed again. It was intentional that she wanted herself to be first known as Alex before Alexandra; being a man in academia and in certainly most parts of the world had its far-reaching advantages. Had lightning not struck during the handshake, she might have even thought the expressions on Evelyn O'Connell's and Ardeth Bay's faces funny.

Was not Evelyn O'Connell a prominent figure too in her publications about Pharaonic Egypt? Did she not read hieroglyphics too? Why did the Cairo Museum then?

There was too much to think and digest.

A knock on her door.

Great, she felt tired and dirty, but tried to answer the door with good grace.

The concierge - a place like this had a concierge - who handed her a letter from an old friend back in England.

_My dear Alex,_

_It never occurred to me that you were gutsy enough to move to Egypt indefinitely, but with your aunt's sad passing, I am never more convinced that I should write hastily to inform you that you are now Godmother to a bouncing treasure of a baby boy._

Alex scanned the letter rapidly, feeling her head droop in the afternoon heat, until a particular section caught her attention.

_It surprised me greatly that your aunt had never revealed to you that your parents were partially Egyptian by birth - I think. My mum knew them at least, before she too, bless her soul, passed on. She knew that one day you would return to Egypt 'to search yourself out', in her very own words. Rightly so and high time, girl! Wag your finger, shake your head at me, but it is good that you finally leave for another adventure in the great outback of Arabia._

Alex grimaced. Did Ellen really think that the 'great outback of Arabia' was one adventure?

_I will henceforth be awaiting whatever news you choose to relay to me,  
Your friend,  
Ellen  
_  
Her parents were half-Egyptian?

Brought up by her wealthy distant aunt, her only relative left in the world who died only the year before, who vaguely said that her parents were of 'mixed origin whose roots sank deep down' into the Sumerians, the Celts and the Mughal Empire, which probably explained her dark hair that contained stray strands of reddish-gold and her Eurasian flecked eyes.

That was all that Cordelia had revealed, and Alex had asked no more.

She chose to take the practical approach. Her parents were lost to her and that was left at that. here memories of them were at best, sparse. Their being half-Egyptian did not matter; it did not help her insecurities and her trepidation of stepping out into an unknown land simply to read hieroglyphs in a country that boasts their origin.

But Aunt Cordelia was at heart, a nomad, a tale-spinner of extraordinary ability also, and Alex sometimes privately thought that Cordelia had romanticised her ancestry to give her a good night's sleep. Aunt Cordelia could not stay in one place for very long; and wherever she went, Alex was dragged along, sometimes for months on end; she had learnt to travel with little and the cumbersome luggage that accompanied her now surely seemed unnecessary if not for the fact that she needed academic reference material.

Egypt; barely any memory of it when she went with Cordelia at age four, Wales, at age 5, Turkey, age 9, Spain and Portugal, age 11, Italy, age 12, Romania, age 13, Hadhramout, at age 16, France, at age 17, Morocco, age 19 and the list went on. They always seemed to circuit the globe for months on end, but always returned to England somehow. Good for your education and language, my young girl, Cordelia had repeated to her time and again.

They stopped travelling when Alex turned 23; Cordelia had insisted that Alex studied as much as she could in England. Her old knees and back were getting to her too, but Cordelia's stubborn pride would have never admitted that. Alex knew what this meant to her dear nomadic aunt - a sacrifice to be immobile because of her. She often wondered if her aunt had died happy, in a house that she felt chained to but adamantly stayed in so that Alex could complete her doctorate without feeling obligated to go country romping once more.

A reply as soon as possible would be best, she thought.  
 __  
Dear Ellen,

_It does seem that you have an uncanny ability to track me wherever I choose to put my feet down. I happen to be in Egypt, my darling, not quite in Arabia, even though the very name of Arabia and its shifting sands suggests a lot more scandalous nights and masked pirates and does a girl's fantasies a lot more justice._

She sighed again.  
 _  
Dr. Alexandra Khalan - the salutation sounds like a joke to my very own ears, also synonymous with years spent clustered up writing page after page about the ancient Egyptian script. You know that it is merely bluster, Ellen, this whole academic business. Yes, I love history very much, and I love the things that I work with, but I hate the protocol and the very necessary administration that comes with it!_

_The voyage here was uneventful, the only highlight being that I got to throw 2 men overboard for cheating me at a card game._

_I will leave that up to you to decide whether that sentence was written in jest._

_People whisper about me -I do not walk about and survive for so long with my ears turned in, you know. Most of the time I stay silent or keep to myself because I do not know how to react or react in a way that might 'please' people. So it's better this way. And you thought that a life of adventure around the globe with Cordelia has made me an open personality?_

_Evelyn O'Connell is the other academic who I'm attached to, indefinitely and it is going to be a long day from the looks of it.  
_  
Ardeth Bay...not a good idea to mention him, she thought.  
 __  
Ellen, is it necessary that I end here; forgive me in advance if I am not able to correspond for a while until I settle in. I hear that the repercussions of the Wall Street Crash is still keenly felt in Europe and some dynamic Austrian born soldier is starting to stir up the already boiling pot of Germany is it not? Your father is in politics; it will be an exciting time I think.

_With warmest Regards_

She wondered about the house she stayed in with her old aunt, wondered about its occupants, wondered about what might have happened had she decided to stay in England. The war had indeed made Europe and Britain a very different place.

Idle wonderings aside, who then, was Ardeth Bay?

Suddenly and inexplicably she wanted her ordered life back; not that it was anyway ordered to begin with, but it was a life that had not been yet introduced to the person of Ardeth Bay, his mysterious eyes, manner of dressing and his fearsome touch. It felt safer then, and meeting him seemed to plunge her into a constant flurry of nerves that she did not quite know how to interpret.

The glimpse she had of the dark warrior with markings on his cheeks and foreheads had left her with the vague impression that there was an equal amount of the dramatic in his appearance that was probably part of the intimidation tactic. The Protectors of the ancients and of the eternal. Ardeth Bay...yet he still caused more discomfort than uneasiness than anyone she had been acquainted with; even with his startlingly fluent English and even more startlingly civil manners, nothing concealed the fact that this man probably slew more people than she would see in her entire lifetime.

It wasn't as if Ardeth Bay was a repulsive man, she conceded grudgingly to herself; he was indeed more than just pleasant to look at, overly dramatic and romantic hair that would take flight on horseback, imposing figure in black, the colour of intimidation, (so would his horse be, she believed) and a figure too excellent and prominent to be hidden by those heavy robes. Tattoos, cheekbones and a nicely trimmed beard - did it not all seem calculated to increase his appeal? A man like him would stand out easily among any others, a man of men, she thought sardonically, who was probably a paragon in the obscure tribe that he hailed from. Women who draped themselves over him -he had to be someone important to be found in the office of Dr. O' Connell in the museum, didn't he?

And that handshake!

The blinding flash of white and red that annihilated all possible thought in that space of a millisecond. That nightmare of a vision would have lasted longer had he not thankfully removed his hand from hers. She saw his reaction - the mirror image of hers when he snatched his hand away; he probably whispered a prayer to his Allah as he did so.

Alex frowned. Perhaps it was best that she kept her cool with him. It was her best way of dealing with people, she reflected with an ironic twist of a smile.

Her aunt Cordelia had murmured cryptically that destiny would shape Alex's future -the academic and the factual side of her never took Cordelia's ramblings too seriously; what was empirical was the real to her, period. She was no witch, no treasure hunter; just an explorer uncovering facts, facts and facts. She had no gift of prophecy; the unexpected ways of destiny are simply to be cried or rejoiced upon.

Her musings had taken her past lunchtime, but she had no appetite -seasickness was something her colleagues often joked about when they saw her occasional green face even on relatively short voyages. Her gait was shaky even as she left for the museum earlier that morning and surprised even herself by appearing upright and composed for the meeting with the museum experts.

There was still the meeting with Evy O'Connell in 2 hours, more papers to sign for her clearance, unpacking to do, the search for a rented house

Alex tilted her chin upwards, stretched her neck and screamed inwardly. Administration had never been and never will be her forte.


	9. How do you believe in History?

Evy missed the shelving of books in the museum. It was strange to think that that task which she had hated during her time as a librarian now returned with a nostalgia to her. She felt like a carefree young woman again, with Jonathan as her only buffoon of a companion. Maybe it had to do with her son and brother back in England playing their special brand tomfoolery on each other. She missed them terribly, but it definitely seemed a better way to keep them both out of trouble and to keep trouble out of them.

The museum was relatively empty; Rick was on his way to get lunch for her and it suddenly seemed that lunch time was a good time to do a bit of fooling around herself, she thought.

Glancing around, making sure that no one was there, she crept up a ladder that leaned on one of the shelves, admiring the circle that they were arranged in - the loop of knowledge that so overwhelmed her then and still overwhelmed her now. How she would spend the entire morning reading the books that were meant to be shelved, while staying upright on the ladder until her long skirts were covered with dust and her booted feet protested. Until one morning she lost her balance and tipped all the shelves over. Dr. Bay was livid then; she remembered frantically trying to make excuses as to why he should keep her as a librarian in Cairo. Because I have the ability to ermread, and write ancient Egyptian-

And oh, the reshelving of the books and righting them all over again was then, the most horrendous task she had to accomplish. Jonathan had not helped a whit; he stood around her, fingering the ancient artefacts and pretended to examine them closely as she tried to right the shelves with a mighty effort.

Evy smiled in remembrance - was it really a decade ago and just how much has her life altered since then?

She had lost her job but had gained a husband, a son and a Medjai friend, a doctorate in return and finally, gained a job back in the very same place where she first started out. Perhaps the only major difference was that she was much older and clumsier.

Was she?

The only way to find out was to tempt fate.

But the time she got to the top of the ladder, she was heady with delight. She tilted her head sideways, ran her finger through the titles - _The Reign of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, The Union of Upper and Lower Egypt, Cleopatra's Rule in Ptolemaic Egypt _. Reaching sideways, she saw a book the looked interesting - _Ancient Egypt and its foreign relations with the surrounding kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia_. She was about to thumb through it and -__

__"Dr. O'Connell!"_ _

__Evy swung around in fright, book flying far out of her hands as the ladder buckled beneath her._ _

__Dr. Alexandra Khalan was looking upwards at her with widened eyes, probably wondering if she made a mistake by standing below the ladder that now threatened to tip the wrong way and carry Dr. O'Connell with it._ _

__"Oh, Dr. Khalan, you..Oh, I'm sorry, this is -"_ _

__Evy by this time could only straighten her spine to stand upright and perpendicular to the floor for a couple of seconds before she tipped forward and sailed towards the shelf in front of her - she closed her eyes, stretched out her hands and prepared herself for the ominous thundering of the shelves into one another -I am going to lose my job again! - and found that there was silence._ _

__Dr. Khalan had a grimace plastered on her face, eyes squeezed shut and fingers in her ears, before she also realised the unusual lack of movement._ _

__"Miss me anyone?" A voice said dryly._ _

__"Rick! Oh thank heavens you are here!" Evy opened her eyes to find that her husband had stopped the catastrophe in time by catching her before she made the crash a reality._ _

__"And what if I wasn't, Madam, hmm?" He asked her pointedly._ _

__"Well! You are and that is what matters," Evy answered archly. "Dr. Khalan is here, Rick, let's show her the special Egyptian hospitality, shall we!"_ _

__Alexandra Khalan now wore an amused look on her face, a slight smile that hinted of merriment rather than offense._ _

__"Dr. Khalan, please, do come into my office. Would you like a cup of coffee?"_ _

__Alexandra Khalan found herself once again in the small claustrophobic office that she was brought to in the morning. It was strangely pentagonal in shape, not the regular rectangular ones she expected, with small vents on the sides as windows. She wondered dimly how Evy O'Connell could tolerate such working conditions but not before -_ _

__"Dr. Khalan, let me apologise for the comedy of errors that you had to endure throughout today." Evy said sincerely, stretching out her hand to Alex once more._ _

__Rick offered his hand to her, a genial smile on his face._ _

__Alex took both their proffered hands and shook them easily. It was finally time to get down to some business that she was looking forward to. She took a seat next to a miniature of Bastet, frowning at it and gingerly cleared away papers that stuck out of every nook and cranny._ _

__Evelyn saw how uncomfortable Alex was sitting and hastened to clear away more stuff._ _

__"You see, I've only moved into this office a couple of days ago but it looks as if a snowstorm has exploded in here."_ _

__Alex looked at her curiously. In truth she did not quite know how to handle Dr. O'Connell and her penchant for speaking her mind._ _

__"Dr. Khalan, that I myself am not too sure about your posting to Cairo. The museum directors have not told me much; simply happily placed me in charge of your arrival and the expedition that you are going to undertake. As to what kind, method of expedition, I have no clue. Perhaps you can tell me more? Let me know how the museum, or I might help." Evy was quite pleased with herself. Despite the years spent with Rick and absorbing his uncouth speech inflexions, she had retained the sense of diplomacy when needed._ _

__Dr. Khalan gave a ghost of a smile; she did seem rather unused to the happier emotions, Evy thought._ _

__"It is strange, Dr. Khalan," Evy remarked, "That Cairo Museum prepares so much for your arrival, only to thrust you completely in my hands. I hope I may redeem myself for botching your first impression of us then."_ _

__"Well, yes, the pageantry is really unnecessary, Dr. O' Connell." Dr. Khalan said somewhat awkwardly._ _

__Rick and Evy now sat with faces full of anticipation. Alex Khalan thought to get straight to the point._ _

__"The Bembridge Council has been obsessed for years, Dr. O'Connell, with matching a certain period of Egypt with Biblical history, more specifically, the great Exodus of the Israelites."_ _

__Now that was not welcome news._ _

__"Anything that got too close to the time period of Seti I and Ramses II is anything far from good, repeat after me, Evy. Anything that got too close." Rick had instructed her that when they were high above Ahm Shere in the dirigible._ _

__She was beginning to wholeheartedly agree with him._ _

__Evy felt a prickling on the back of her neck she did not feel since she was on Izzy's dirigible. The Exodus. Ramses II. She glanced at Rick, whose face was suddenly more guarded than usual, but motioned her with a staying hand._ _

__Alex continued blithely, unaware of the growing trepidation of the other occupants of the room._ _

__"It's thought that the Exodus happened during the time of Ramses II, or Seti I's son. Well, when and how Ramses ascended the throne - I'm sure you know that already..." She trailed off, noticing the slow change in the demeanour of her host._ _

__Evelyn was truly starting to get worried, but she could not deny that all the talk of the ancients were more than compelling to her. She sat up straighter and leaned forward, engrossed in what Dr. Khalan was saying._ _

__"The evidence we have today about Egypt during this time is at best sketchy. Many of my readings are from outside sources like ancient Assyrian verse, or from Biblical evidence. There are numerous accounts during ca. 1270 B.C of Ramses' defeat of the Hittites at Qadesh for example, and even the design-specifics of his temples in Luxor, Karnak and Abu Simbel can be found, but very little of his actual administration itself; the political leadership of his reign, or how the Egyptian economy performed during that time is written. Makes one wonder why, considering that the sarcophagus that you have right in that room is that of a man who is believed to have lived way into his nineties."_ _

__"But most of Egyptian history, or rather most of history is written by winners, Dr. Khalan," Evy ssaid firmly. "Just the same way Akhenaten's new religion of sun-worship traumatised the people so much that they sought to erase all that they had found in El-Amarna, leaving mere ruins for poor us to reconstruct and piece together. But erasing the history...oh my god..." She exhaled sharply. "It did not occur to me before that -"_ _

__Rick also nodded slowly in understanding._ _

__"Are we realising the same thing?" He asked his stunned wife._ _

__"I think so, Rick. Please, do continue Dr. Khalan."_ _

__"There is absolutely no mention of the Exodus in Egyptian records, despite all that I've pored through during the reign of Seti I, Ramses II and Ramses III - which leads to the conclusion that I think you all have just discovered for yourselves- that history was simply erased. Or not allowed to be written, by goodness knows what means possible."_ _

__"Leave the good, clean the bad away, eh?" Rick clucked his tongue in new appreciation for the Pharoahs._ _

__Alex was getting excited._ _

__"Bembridge thinks that scrolls of papyrus had to be written of course, the only catch is that, they are all hidden somewhere. Because my doctorate was in hieroglyphic studies and other ancient languages, I was hired to work on this lifelong obsession of theirs - to search for the scrolls of the Exodus, written by the Egyptians themselves, which are hopefully not destroyed."_ _

__"Whoa, do you mean that you are going on a carnage for ancient tombs?" Rick held up a hand disbelievingly._ _

__"I'm no explorer, Mr. O'Connell," Alex pointed out._ _

__"Rick. Just Rick please."_ _

__"On a first name basis are we then? Call me Alex, Alexandra, whatever pleases you."_ _

__"Just Evy."_ _

__"No, no carnage nor dramatic tomb openings nor silly Mummy curses, Rick," She emphasised his name then, making him smile. He was starting to see a considerable similarity she had to Evy. To make matters worse, they were both doctors of the intellect. The Mummy's curse part, however, he was not too sure about._ _

__"A Babylonian source - this traveller called Ar'siuqqa who was in Egypt during Ramses' administration wrote about a systematic massacre of scribes of some sort some months after the Exodus, presumably so that nothing detrimental to Egypt's glorious legacy will be recorded. It goes something like this", Alex tiled her head sideways and tried to wring the memory forth._ _

__She was trying to picture the Akkadian cuneiform text that he wrote, Evelyn realised. This woman knew the Babylonian pictograms?_ _

__" _Sûmalûu ersatîm sïmatïïm ne..._ " The long-forgotten words felt strange on her tongue._ _

__Evy and Rick stared at her, mystified, waiting anxiously for her translation._ _

__"Generally, he saw, over a few weeks, the purging of a people who were of a certain rank in Egypt; he did not quite mention what, but just referred to them as men who were marked, branded with words on their flesh." She shrugged. "There is actually another additional source, that you might like to hear about."_ _

__"Alex," Rick started out hesitatingly, "I think it might be best if you actually -"_ _

__"Well, I certainly do not think it's a fantasy or that it is made up, if that is what you are implying."_ _

__"No, Alex, you did misinterpret Rick. We are...how do I put this...um..very firm believers in accounts possibly far more than you ever thought we would be. At this time however, I insist that you stop. We will need you to repeat yourself once again this evening, in the privacy of our own home this time."_ _

__"But I...this is merely a job, Dr. O'Connell. Why, I didn't think you were -" This was getting kind of confusing._ _

__"I will explain more later. Are you staying in a Cairo hotel? Well then, please, no protests from you, we would like you to stay in our presently very empty, quiet and lonely house for as long as you wish, until you find suitable lodgings."_ _

__The hour hand of the clock pointed to six o' clock._ _

__An old memory came back to Evy. She was clinging to the wall; everywhere was gold, the other woman also had a mask on her face and she was filled with adrenalin as she back flipped to counter attack Anck-su-namun's parries and thrusts._ _

___Your skills are improving, Nefertiri. I'd better watch my back._ _ _

___Yes,_ she had panted, _and I'll watch mine.__ _

__She shook it off as one would shake off snow on a coat, where the snowflakes would eventually melt in someplace obscure._ _

__"But -" Dr. Khalan objected._ _

__"No buts," Evy said then, sounding very much like a mother, "I am afraid you'll have to trust us on this account. Oh dear, I need to watch myself; how often is it that we accost a new co-worker into our grand scheme of things?"_ _

__She glanced apologetically at Alex._ _

__"We will explain a lot more, Doc. Just hang on until dinner time."_ _

__"Yes," Evy supplied. "This time, the surprise will be on your side."_ _


	10. Dinner Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pardon my Orientalist portrayal of Egypt of the 1930s. I'm pretty sure it's just a figment of my imagination.

Alexandra Khalan really did not know what had happened. They had shooed her out of Evy's office when things were starting to get exciting, not knowing that it was the very same reason that they had done so, and now she thanked heavens that she had not started unpacking yet.

The O'Connells seemed to communicate more with looks than with words, she noticed wryly; how could she mistake those exchanged glances and little touches they gave each other? Even throughout her introduction, they threw each other glances; she did see those from the corner of her eyes, probably wondering thought if she was a wayward academic, until they reassured her otherwise.

At exactly seven thirty, they promised her, that someone would bring them to the O'Connell residence - the absolutely most trustworthy and reliable transport service that Egypt can offer. This certain 'transport service' they did describe so fondly about, well, Alex decided to keep her mouth shut until she saw it for herself.

Seven-twenty according to her watch.

She had showered once again and dressed, in casual pants and shirt, trunks lying about her, sitting in the excuse of a lobby in the hotel, visions of chauffeur-driven cars manufactured in Europe and red carpets of the silver screen materialising in her mind.

She looked down at the floorboards for a second, and a pair of black booted feet filled vision. She frowned and contemplated looking up, but not before a voice filled her ears.

"Dr. Khalan," a rough voice said in greeting.

Standing before her was a man like and not like Ardeth Bay. Same tattoos on the face, same black turban and imposing garb of all black, with criss-crossing straps across his torso, held in check by a belt that supported a bewildering number of weapons -scimitars, daggers and guns? Whatever it was, the man was a walking ammunition factory.

His voice was rougher and weathered, as was his face and his hair was long, very long, waist-length in fact, so much so that it made her bite her lip before she impulsively screamed 'savage'.

"I am Khaliq, Ardeth Bay's deputy commander - you have met Ardeth Bay this morning, did you not -I am to escort you to the O'Connell residence." His English was also impeccable, not unlike Ardeth's, but more Arabic-accented.

She nodded, and gestured to the trunks surrounding her.

"Please, do be careful. There are precious and rare books in there."

"Books? Instead of clothes that women find so appealing?" He laughed.

Khaliq took her trunks into his large hands and escorted her to a... _car_?

The Medjai had cars?

The day was becoming stranger by the hour; she now only hoped to be able to sleep well at night when the hours crawled to a close as she struggled with the rest of her boxes.

Khaliq saw her mystified look, offered her an explanation that might calm her.

"The Medjai and the O'Connells have a special relationship with each other, Dr. Khalan, because of the unusual circumstances that our leader found himself in a decade ago. I think you are about to learn that very soon. The car that you travel in," Khaliq smiled in satisfaction, "belongs to Rick O'Connell. You may be rest assured that I have the knowledge of operating this vehicle and that it has been in no way stolen."

"Any friend of the O'Connells will be the Medjai's too." He smiled readily, exposing crooked but white teeth.

Did the Medjai observe a hygiene regime too?

Alex shook off stray thoughts and nodded mutely. She stepped into the car, attempted to get comfortable amidst her trunks, but was barred from doing so because of Khaliq's driving.

A smarmy Cairo that bustled fully with life greeted her - multitude of lights that magically appeared only in the evening leaped at her senses, and the yells of fruit and cloth peddlers filled her ears; the women walked with veiled faces, some accompanied by foreign men, others by the natives. There were belly dancers of a sort, clothed in sheer fabrics and silks, a small circus of sort and its cheery music was performing in another corner -she could not see clearly as the car moved in the opposite direction, blurring the scores of people, the colours of cloth and the lights into a sparkling kaleidoscope. It was enthralling, all that she saw, and Khaliq's increasing speed added exhilaration, headiness.

She would never lose her thrill for travelling. 

But a woman who moved and wandered about too much was frowned upon, wasn't it? Independence, the feeding of the intellect and solitude, the strange combination that she seemed destined and partially prepared for.

They sped through the varying widths of the dirt lanes of Cairo, with the violet red sunset on their backs and the open top of the car that allowed the hot remnants of the day-siroccos blow fiercely over their heads. The open top, as she was discovering, also proved very convenient for Khaliq to raise his head, wave a hand frantically out and swear at those who stood in his way. His hard right/left turns were seriously starting to trouble her and for a frightening second she feared they might not reach their destination.

"I learned how to drive a car in Greece a year ago," he grinned and yelled above the wind. "Very effective way. Good if the Medjai need speed. Our commander approves, although he prefers traditional methods of transport, like horses and camels. I offered to teach him someday and he said -'it will be a very far someday when I learn from you.'"

That simply made her put more faith in his driving skills, did it not?

"From the way you drive I don't think I will die of any natural cause. I suppose if you were any more cruel, it would be easier to plod all of them down." She muttered dryly under her breath.

In response, Khaliq turned left, right, drove straight, took another right and an immediate left, or at least that was what she thought as he raced past every junction. How was the blind-folded man in _A Thousand and One Nights_ every able to recall the arduous way that his captives led him through?

The maze of streets was downright confusing - no parallel lanes to orientate one; instead a peculiar jumble of roads that appeared should anyone see fit to build, either through official government development or simply through the clearing of land by the frequent trampling herd and horses. The latter applied to the O'Connells' residence.

Were academics really that impoverished?

So the O'Connells lived in the suburbs outside Cairo; on the periphery of the old town, barely a hundred steps from an old wall that enclose a whole multitude of houses stretching over two hills. This wall and its niche seemed to always have been meant for the emaciated body of a squatting beggar, still carrying the primordial memory of pre-existence, the scent of the exotic and unknown. She noticed, that in this quite obscure, quiet and isolated narrow corner the lane narrowed suddenly, leading to an apparent dead end, but had in fact a small right turning, a small passageway wide enough for two people to run through. Two magnificent horses were tied to a post, a midnight black and pure white Arabian stallions, huge and sleek.

Khaliq brought the car to a halt in front of the nondescript building and carried her trunks out, while she sat in the car for a minute longer, regaining her centre, willing the interlocked images of brown desert, the sunset and the effervescent lights to disappear from her crossed eyes.

Evy O'Connell ran and opened the door in the most exuberant manner Alex had ever seen and allowed Khaliq to carry the trunks into the guest room.

"I hope the drive through Cairo was not too harrowing?" She asked mischievously; she had an idea how Khaliq handled her husband's car and it was only after an inordinate amount of coaxing that he allowed Khaliq to pick Alex up.

Alex just shook her head and raised her arms in surrender.

"Come, let's make you comfortable before we begin dinner. Ardeth is already here."

Ardeth?

Alex fought the urge to cringe and squirm at that name; knowing that his presence made it all appear more farcical, knowing from the start that he was irreconcilably a part of all this, what it may all mean.

"Please, do not worry yourself about it. I am clean, at least before Khaliq stomped the city, although I suspect I might need another bath later, but for now, we may begin." She said with much difficulty.

"Then, let us do sit down."

The inside of the O'Connell smallish residence was far from impoverished; boxes that were shipped from England were half opened, their contents yanked out in great excitement to decorate a new home with all that was familiar.

The first level of the living area was joined to the dining area by a walkway of cold marble, and opened out to a patio -the a short flight of stairs on the left partially exposed its second level, from which another flight of stairs, much longer this time, led to the bedrooms on the uppermost floors. There might even be a balcony hidden from prying eyes, she thought.

It was the most unusual house that she had ever laid her eyes on.

Carvings of the cartouches of Sneferu, Menkaura, Menes already lined one wall -the O'Connells apparently had the entire collection of the Old Kingdom Pyramid builders and from the looks of it, were preparing to unpack more carvings of the 18th Dynasty rulers when she arrived. Perhaps there might even be a stray sarcophagus in there, she rolled her eyes.

Their house was an eclectic mix of modern and ancient; the dining area was devoid of chairs; the off-white walls that surrounded it were deliberately left rough; and the floor was instead lined with thick Persian carpets and Egyptian mats; in the corners were slender and smooth earthen vases that held miniature fronds and papyrus reeds, with enormous cushions with gold and silver tassels that must have surely once lined a sultan's abode were liberally scattered around. Two low tables, of a rich mahogany were placed side by side as Evy brought out their dinner.

Evy interrupted her fascinated observation of the house.

"Like it well? We are still in the midst of settling down," Evy caught sight of Ardeth and beckoned him to the dining room.

He spoke in low tones to his second in command, who then hurried out of the O'Connell residence with a goodbye, riding off into the night as swift as the wind.

Alex turned briefly to acknowledge Ardeth, who once again inclined his head to her, keeping his hands behind his back and sat down on a cushion. Rick and Evy took their places, smiling in anticipation and motioned for them to start eating.

Alex dragged a colossal, deep purple cushion and placed it next to Ardeth, ignoring the short piercing stare of his.

"Dr Khalan, I mean, Alex, we are so sorry to put you through all of this," Rick began. "But we think it is of utmost importance that you tell Ardeth what you've told us this afternoon. You see, he is the leader of the Medjai, a secret society that existed since Egypt of the Pharaohs and now swear to protect their secrets in their graves."

Ardeth turned to Alex.

"Dr Khalan," He started.

"Please, just Alex," She interrupted him. "The Commander of the Medjai?" She asked skeptically. Were they a form of military themselves? 

"Yes, that is so."

"We have told him your purpose in coming to retrieve the scrolls," Evy put in, "and we are sorry to have interrupted you when you were telling us about your sources. Please do go on. We only wanted you to be in a safer place when you revealed everything."

Perplexed, Alex eyed the solemn trio with great bewilderment.

How was the O'Connell residence at an obscure corner a safer place than the open Cairo Museum? If anything, they seemed more likely to be ambushed here.

"Well, you did manage to come to the conclusion yourselves that Ramses probably erased the scrolls from history, and massacred those who tried to record the Plagues and the Passover."

The trio nodded.

"The only thing that I was trying to tell you was that Ramses had seen the power of a legendary city of Hamunaptra himself under his father's rule. What other better place than to execute the scribes there and to throw the scrolls in with them."

Rick, Evy and Ardeth grew pale at the mention of the City of the dead; it seemed as if Hamunaptra was never far away from their lives; it found its re-entry in so many different forms.

Evy was unprepared for the emotional onslaught that overtook her; Rick felt a splitting headache returning in addition to the slight coughs that had started to afflict him. Additional thoughts of the near indestructible dust priests that Imhotep had conjured out of his bag of tricks now made him want to collapse in chagrin.

"Whoa, you lost me there. If Ramses wanted to scrolls destroyed and threw them into Hamunaptra, why would they still exist then? Shouldn't they be destroyed also?" Rick questioned.

"I never said the scrolls were destroyed, did I?"

"That's right, Rick. She never did." Evy pointed out.

"The execution of the scribes, according to Ar'siuqqa, was made public. It was meant to be a spectacle for all to see, so that they were reminded of Egypt's strength and might, or rather, dogmatism on those who went against royal rule. The scrolls that were thrown in with them in Hamunaptra, but were not destroyed. Ar'siuqqa did not mention clearly what happened to them; he only said that Egypt then was rotten to the core. And the root word for 'rotten' in Akkadian is 'Dï'ïtim', which actually means 'poison'."

"What are you saying, Dr. Khalan?" Ardeth put in.

She took a deep breath, "My theory is that the scrolls were painted with poison of the deadliest kind found in the Egypt at that time. Anyone who tried to recover it would touch the lethal substance and drop dead like a fly."

Three faces with brows furrowed in concentration greeted her.

"It is not ungrounded," she argued defensively, "Poisoning was - and still is - a very effective means of deterrence. And the lethalness of poison may last for thousands of years if undisturbed."

"Hamunaptra," Ardeth said slowly, "did exist. But it no longer does." He had said that truthfully; the last he saw of it was the massive excavation that the reincarnation of Anck-su-namun and the curator of the British Museum had initiated and he hoped to Allah that their excavations had left it a wasteland.

"He is right, Doc, Hamunaptra is nothing but grains in the ground and broken pillars. I'm afraid that your scholarship is for naught." Rick's stoic face had revealed nothing and Evy looked troubled as he said those words.

"I am answerable to the Cairo Museum, which in turn as ties to Bembridge, Rick. Ardeth," Evy turned pleadingly to him, "Do you see our positions?"

"Honey, can't you tell them it is not feasible in the least? Well, so they made a mistake in bringing a Bembridge scholar here."

"Pardon me, sir," Alex started rigidly, "I think I made a mistake in agreeing to stay with you. Please forgive my intrusion." She made a move to get up, but was stopped by the hand of the Egyptian's on her forearm -

And saw two lovers embracing in her mind's eye -one fair-haired, closely cropped, the other, a short-haired woman; both lying down on an elaborate bed, and there was gold all over; but it was also blood, screams and a sharp silvery knife that drew the blood -

_Oh Allah!_

Ardeth had removed his hand from hers, and they looked uncertainly at each other, each wanting to say more, but not daring, each wanting to apologise, but not sure what was there to apologise for.

"No, please," Evy interrupted then, glaring at Rick. "You are our guest, my husband forgot himself a while ago. You see, Ardeth and uswe have been through a couple of,"she coughed delicately, "roughsituations before and so we are all wary at the first mention of explorations."

Rick was seething, she knew, but there was also something forbidden about Hamunaptra which she wanted to taste, although they had nearly lost their lives there.

"I know you wish to go to Hamunaptra, despite all that we have said. But it is getting late and your nerves are probably more frayed than ours, by now. Let us talk tomorrow again, shall we?" Evy's firm voice drew no argument from anyone. "I will show you to your room."

For a tense moment, no one said anything, until Alex nodded, her face now cast in stone, softening at Evy's attempt to chastise her husband for his uncharacteristic outburst.

Perhaps they all needed a good night's rest before everyone thought clearly.


	11. An Evening with Ardeth

The world that her eyes could make out was starting to blur before her; her breathing had accelerated very slightly and by that Alex knew she was exceedingly tired. She barely made it to her bedroom, noticed its loveliness for a fleeting moment before opening the trunks to find her nightclothes.

Her bedroom contained warm and deep shades - maroons, burgundy and browns - softly lit with tiny petrol lamps; illuminating sharp angles and casting beautiful shadows onto the walls.

She stared at her haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror before washing her face and arms down. The girl that had grown into a woman did not seem to bring the optimism and exuberance of youth with her. She was too cautious, too commitment-conscious to approach situations with a daredevil attitude (probably a result from her nomadic travelling days with Cordelia who had instilled in her the love of movement and the liberty of freedom); this was probably the greatest exception in her life; packing her things and transporting them to Egypt without a second thought. Had she just tossed her good sense out of the window? 

Alex yawned widely. The brain has ceased to function under the luxuriant furnishings and the soft mattress with its multi-coloured quilt's hold on her was suddenly unbreakable. She flopped down on the bed, not sure of the moment her head touched the downy pillow.

**************

When signs, words and pictures were turned over, mixed and thoroughly jumbled, he knew he had turned himself in to the past. Ardeth drifted in an dout of wakefulness; he was powerless to stop the thick mist that flew on multiple wings - he thought he saw Horus's flight in mid-air - Horus' wings that flapped madly around his head, Horus screeching loudly, his wings once more a blur around him; Horus was no sleeper, he thought hazily -

And when the wings were removed from in front of his eyes, the scene cleared to display lovers locked in another time, sheltering each other in an intimate embrace; they were different people this time, he realised, a dark haired man and a dark haired woman. He saw them at a distance - their faces hazy; mere silhouettes whose shapes and actions were their only distinguishing features.

They stood close together; the man's arms grasped the woman's shoulders tightly, crumpling her diaphanous gown around the shoulders, but she had not given heed to it; her arms -one around his neck, the other on his chest and Ardeth felt a tinge of embarrassment for watching their intimacy, but the embarrassment faded to horror when the woman was left alone, this time wielding a knife in her hands, its blade descending very deliberately-

He sat up with a start, felt around him to recover the solid sensation of wakefulness, his fingers gripping the cushions tightly; they were his first firm grips of reality, before his eyes accustomed itself to the darkness. The world righted itself, and slowly he felt himself returning to the twentieth century. 

Papyrus reeds in vases, cartouches and carpets. A comfortable cot lined with the finest Egyptian cotton.

He was still in the O'Connell residence, sleeping on their low, wide divan.

And he was not alone. Alexandra Khalan stood over him, and he thought he saw a worried look on her face in the darkness, but he could not tell.

"Mr. Bay, I hope that my movements did not startle you." She spoke softly, not wanting to wake the entire household.

He sat up tiredly, ran a hand through the black hair made unruly by sleep and rubbed his eyes.

"Dr. Khalan, do not worry yourself. I woke up because of entirely something else. Are you unable to sleep?" He replied, matching her formal address and tone.

She considered lying, that she was hungry in the early hours of the dawn, and had come down in search for something to chew, but gave that idea up.

"I was on my way down when I heard you cry out." She had measured her words carefully, not revealing that she had awoken because of a fretful sleep, dreamless, but nonetheless restless.

"You know Arabic do you not? It is merely the modern form of the ancient languages you say you study." He questioned her.

"Ah, yes, the demons of the day are still persistent by night, I see." She observed wryly, answering him in passable Arabic, gauging his response.

"Very nicely said, Dr. Khalan." He observed.

"My Arabic is lousy, even though I am fully aware that it is a derivative of 10th century Coptic Egyptian, Mr Bay. I shall not murder your language and insult your nationality any further. Please, let us converse in English. Your English is in any case far better than a sentence of Arabic that I might be able to string together."

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong. Hearing foreigners speak Arabic surprises any native, who is then more likely to give you more concessions and favours than the rest who do not." Ardeth challenged.

"Perhaps," She shrugged. "I have not stayed in Egypt long enough to see that, but yes, it generally happens elsewhere too."

"You sound well-travelled, Dr. Khalan." Ardeth offered after a minute of silence.

"I suppose you can say that, Mr Bay." Somehow it did not seem appropriate to present to him her entire life story; neither did she expect him to reveal anything - it was best that they kept their conversations as safe as possible. Something else had caught her attention.

She had noticed the impropriety of their proximity to each other, improperly dressed, she, bare-footed in a nightgown with no robe, he in a dark shirt and pants, shoeless as well. She was glancing down uneasily at her attire, or lack thereof, when she heard his quiet voice.

"We are not living in the Middle Ages, Dr. Khalan," There was a smile now in his tone, shocking her into awareness of its rich warmth and sensuousness.

So he had noticed!

"There is hence, no need for you to be uncomfortable in anyway. I may be armed but these weapons are meant for defensive means. You will not be finding yourself in any position where I drag you to a cave and proclaim you the newest addition to an ever-increasing harem."

Was that a joke that she had heard spill from his lips?

Intellectual conversation skills, Alex Khalan, she reminded herself.

"Nothing has changed except for appearances, nothing will change, regardless of any era that one lives in." She answered in a teasing tone.

"Perhaps you are right, Dr. Khalan," Ardeth stood up from his reclining position and faced her. He stretched a little, grimacing.

"Alex. Alexandra. My Name." God, when had she lost her eloquence, surprised by the revelation of how desperately she wanted, no, needed a friend. The greater surprise was that she sought a friend in him, she but a few seconds earlier was determined upon superficialities. She sneaked a glance at his tired face, even more astonished to see the amusement flit across his face at her mild embarrassment. It was in his eyes, she realised, the soft glint of pleasure that shone through when he smiled.

"So we begin again. Do we get past niceties, then? The name is Ardeth. Do not forget it then," He made a movement to light a lamp, but not before she protested.

"You prefer the dark?" He questioned her, watching her get comfortable in the midst of the numerous cushions and half-unpacked boxes in the O'Connell's living room.

How was she to answer this question?

"Well, yes. Is not the earth rightly dark and light and fairly divided? Don't we have equal hours of day and night? Let us leave it at that, shall we? The night will be night. The eyes get used to the darkness fast. It after all has a far greater power, bewitching people far easier than its bright counterpart, think you not?"

Ardeth agreed. The Medjai were warriors of darkness and of the night. He was fast becoming a creature of darkness, if not figuratively, then in the most literal sense.

"That they do." He watched her curiously, barely making her form out, the darkness heightening other senses where sight was limited.

There was, for crying out loud, she thought, another period of awkward silence, which she now struggled to empty out. Alex was grateful for the darkness, for he was then not able to see her flailing about for a conversation topic that might interest both of them. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, on the verge of talking, and withdrew always. An idea struck her.

"Well! It...it truly is a warm night, is it not?"

Ardeth wanted to laugh aloud. The tension that was between them was not hostile, neither was it thick enough to be cut with his scimitar, and the amusing attempt she made at starting a dialogue was starting to tickle him. It was something that he was grateful for; it took away the torment of his dreams of the blade, the knife and the woman; it took away also the dull pain of Ahm Shere, and Anubis' Army winked as a distant memory, and faded.

"Most Egyptian nights are this way, unless there is a violent sand or rainstorm. But sleeping under an Egyptian night sky is a complete otherworldly experience. " Ardeth agreed immediately, settling back comfortably into the cushions opposite her.

"Oh."

"Tell me Dr. Khalan," he began easily, not wanting to call her 'Alex'; the masculine name on a feminine form unfamiliar and unwilling on his tongue, "What is your area of specialisation? You say that you are a student of history? Or is it of language?"

She wanted so badly to thank him for rescuing her out of her discomfiture that she answered more than readily.

"It is more of ancient languages, actually. In the undergraduate year I found my poor clueless self, walking towards the humanities department, registering for a place in the history faculty, and by the time I was a postgraduate I was never surer that it was what I wanted to pursue as a lifelong passion. Well, the interest eventually narrowed down from world history to ancient civilisations. And then a smack on the forehead - to study the ancient civilisations more completely, I had to learn their languages, no two-ways about it. So that is where you find me now."

"Oriental languages. Very unusual subject for any European to undertake. Is it not then, that ignorant artists in Europe paint impressions of the East as merely exotic, every country resembling the Orient as an Ottoman or should I say, a Turkish delight?" He raised a brow.

She said lightly, "My ancestry is hardly a quarter European, I believe. Moreover, the feel for language in general is not restricted to one's nationality. For all I know, Ardeth, you may spring a surprise on me and start speaking Latin, Dutch or Spanish, all of which I have only a baby's knowledge of."

Ardeth took time to think over what she had just said. It all explained then, her unusual appearance, the burgundy and scarlet highlights in her otherwise black hair, cut to a straight shoulder-length instead of the tight, thick curls that most women wore in emulation of actresses. Her chameleon eyes behaved like the reptile itself, its shifting colours that sometimes appeared more green, sometimes more brown under different intensities of light. She was not conventionally and familiarly attractive, nor was she full of the dark beauty that the Egyptian ladies had, with a medium build and darker skin tone than most Europeans, but intensely striking in a most remarkable way, he concluded, a fusion of the ancient East and the modern West, yet not fully either, a rare appearance that could only be found once in many thousands.

And he was discovering, the beginnings of a charm she kept well hidden that rivalled her extraordinary appearance.

She leaned forward, "It is your turn now, Ardeth. Why not give me an account of what the Medjai are, instead of what history books report?"

"It is very much what you have been told by the O'Connells."

"I believe you are letting that slide off me easily, Ardeth." Her lips twitched.

"We protect history, not research it, if that is what you wish to know. Therein lies the difference, I like to believe. The Medjai have records of their own history," He glanced at her sideways, thoughtfully, wondering if he was revealing too much. "And records of nearly the whole of Egypt's history also."

Her mind reeled, her eyes widened and the intellectual in her, having not shrugged off sleep despite the early hours of the morning - breathed in delight - the availability of sources, possibly primary sources, had caused colour to flood her cheeks, and possibly, the answer to -

But before she or Ardeth could say anything, steps were heard descending from the second tier of the living room, as Evy sleepily padded down, yawn halted mid-way when she caught sight of her two guests in conversation.

"I do not believe I will sleep anymore tonight; I am going to ask you so many questions until you cannot think straight." Alex said in half-jest.

But Ardeth's concerned gaze was on Evy, going to her side in case she needed anything.

"Rick is having a fever. Probably the excessive Cairo dust that he inhaled."

Ardeth nodded. He hoped to heaven that it was in no way connected to the aftermath of the Scorpion King or to the one who shall not be named.

His concern must have shown in his hesitating silence, such that Evy placed a comforting hand on his wrist.

"He will be alright -no overt superstition from you, Ardeth. Rick will personally take a shotgun to your head if he hears you say aloud that Imhotep has bewitched him," she laughed. "I'm only getting a glass of cool water for him. At breakfast you will only see a man who, if under any possible spell, will be under a spell of grumpiness that's all."

Ardeth nodded, recognising the Nefertiri that stood out in Evy, realising that he now knew exactly what she had rambled on about in Izzy's dirigible; he believed it then, but never more so now, only because it has touched something so familiar in the recesses of his mind that he was not ready to probe yet.

The past was near, yet was not, until the thousand images that constituted the soul was first released and reconstructed. He was naturally guarded, reflexes as sharp as his mind, born of an existence of strain and wariness. It was barely easy for him to have a superficial conversation with a doctor who specialised in ancient studies.

How long had he been standing there, left to his thoughts long after Evy had returned upstairs?

He realised that Alex was scrutinising him curiously. The question of his sanity has probably dropped a notch down in her estimation, he thought with an inward snort.

"Excuse that silence, Dr. Khalan. We mystics place great importance on communicating with our souls and spirits," He raised his brows at her, opting for a lighter, humorous response.

"Surely, Ardeth, communicating with one's spirit, so you say, is a tad bit uncalled for. Rick O'Connell has just fallen ill. Do Medjai always make mountains out of molehills?"

"Always, Dr. Khalan. Always." They laughed then, at the high level of ridicule that their talk contained.


	12. The Egyptian Makes a Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Background:  
> The Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, or better known as Akhenaten, tried to destroy Egypt's polytheistic religion towards the end of the 18th dynasty by replacing it with a new religion based on the worship of the sun. His belief was founded on the sun as the exclusive source of all life and creation whose power was visible in the life-giving rays of the sun-disk called the Aten. Akhenaten then claimed to be the high priest of Aten on earth and ordered temples built for the worship of the Aten, open to the sky and without a place for a divine statue. However, after his death, the old gods were reinstates at Thebes and Akhenaten was regarded nothing more than a renegade and a heretic.
> 
> As for the historic place Aram, it existed as a site around Babylon, but what I write of its natural resources is a natural resource of my own imagination.
> 
> We move now to a big chunk of the Ancient Egyptian timeline. Don't forget what has happened in modern-day Cairo though! Hopefully the parallel timelines are not as confusing as they seem. Finally I get to write about the relationship between Aretas and Enheduana-Rai, which you all have probably guessed by now - the ancient version of Ardeth and Dr. Khalan (and what a start, as you're going to find out); after all that has happened between Djosyn and Nefertiri! I had originally intended that Aretas and Rai would take precedence in this story, but later thought that Djosyn and Nefertiri ought to have something too.

Even so you run to seek your beloved one,  
Like the steed upon the battlefield,  
As the warrior rolls along the spokes of his wheels.  
-Ancient Egyptian Verse, Circa. 2000 B.C.

The 19th Dynasty of Egypt, ca.1279 B.C

She had left Nefertiri with Djosyn in the quietest possible manner, holding several unused strips of cloths near to her body, lest anyone enquired too closely.

Aretas watched Djosyn enter Nefertiri's chamber, and then turned to see Enheduana-Rai silently glide down the opposite corridor. A full moon cycle seemed far in coming, especially when time seemed to stand still, prolonging the agony of Egypt before the tired land dipped into tranquillity for the night.

Nobody seemed to know who Enheduana-Rai really was, least of all him, just as there were unfathomable depths of the Nile and the Red Sea that no man had yet plumbed. Elusive, unattainable, detached and shrouded in enigma, this woman appeared to him and all those saw her. Starlight and moonlight that drifted occasionally over black water, he thought, could not be held in one's hand unless one understood what starlight and the moonlight were. 

Some said that she was a worshipper of the cult religion of the Sun under the reign of Akhenaten, others whispered that she was a conquest of Ramses himself, a prized possession among his plunder and loot of the north-eastern regions beyond the gulf. Many had mentioned she had been paraded down the same streets that Seti had rode his royal chariots through, although he had never seen it. There was no surprise that she was regarded with distrust and coldness; Enheduana-Rai did not seem to care; she was almost a renegade concubine, her face constantly expressionless and aloof.

He had watched her fight Nefertiri, her offensive and defensive positions unlike that of the Egyptian fighting stances, but nonetheless effective and deadly under a deft hand - everything seemed to reveal that she was a foreign woman brought to court, either forcibly or by choice, under the rule of Ramses.

Almost unconsciously he followed her, thinking at the back of his mind that the queen would be safe now with Djosyn, following quietly at a safe distance, and saw her going down large winding stairs that led to the back of the palace, and into the small area of marshland and long grass that grew wildly around a tributary of the Nile.

Life where water was found, he smiled briefly. The constancy of the Nile overflowing its banks with rich soil was a sight to behold.

Enheduana-Rai has associated herself with life, whether she knew it or not, bending downwards to kneel before the stream, and washing her hands clean of Nefertiri's dried blood that could not seem to be removed.

He was puzzled; she had chosen not to be cleaned by the servants that were at the beck and call of the royal concubines; and chose to be alone in this marshland.

But in her other hand she seemed to hold a bluish-green substance, the colour of the notorious Sumerian poison - deeply stunned and infuriated, he strode to her, drew his dagger and pulled her up by the arm to face him without any hint of gentleness.

She was not strange looking at all, he realised, as he looked at her face properly for the first time. Varying colours that slid into each other were found in her eyes, just like the colours of the Nile as they changed surely during Egypt's mild seasons, fragments and tones of the Egyptian sunset stamped in her dark hair. Enheduana-Rai, as exquisite as her name sounded, Pharaoh's most precious acquisition since the Hittite War, after his queen Nefertiri.

But the fine exterior of which a person was always became a mockery when the evil of the inside seeped out, he thought.

"You had meant to kill the queen, did you not," he spoke to her through gritted teeth, pointing the dagger at the delicate skin of her throat. Did I not warn you earlier that if she did not live, you would not too? Return with me now, and administer the cure to her.

She looked at him sharply, tall and powerfully built, clad only in a white cotton loincloth embroidered in gold at its edges, tied in an elaborate knot down the front, taking in his bare head - closely cropped midnight hair - and beard that covered the upper lip and chin, darkly menacing with markings on his face and upper arms.

"Release me, Medjai," her tone was vapid, bland. When he did not, she spat out, "You let your excitable emotions rule your head today."

"Do not play tricks with me, Enheduana-Rai. No one allies herself to the queen without nasty intentions or without the hope of any gain. The wiles of the evil are not to be underestimated."

"Kill me then, and leave the blood of an innocent on your hands if the queen lives. Do you dare to slay Pharoah's precious prize?" she taunted. "Did you not make your warning clear when I closed the door behind earlier? Did I not agree to heed it?"

His grip on her loosened a fraction, but the dagger was kept pointed there.

"So I did, but it seems that you did not heed me. You do not take the Medjai seriously, Enheduana-Rai."

"Release me, Medjai," she repeated calmly, "I heard you approach; do not think I was unaware."

And at this he felt the sharp tip of another dagger at his belly, taken aback that she carried a concealed weapon wherever she went, a weapon that that he berated himself for not noticing.

"Will you listen to what I have to say now, Medjai? Your actions have forced me to do this," she said sharply to him.

"So speak now. Until I am satisfied with your explanation, these two blades will touch our skins," he growled.

"As you wish, Medjai," Enheduana-Rai acquiesced. "But remember that you have no claim on me; the death of a Medjai means nothing to the Pharaoh, if you should die in protecting his and all that is his, is it not? Should my blade penetrate your skin, the Pharaoh will accept my explanation of self-defense easier than he would of yours, should your blade enter my throat, for you then take away one of his possessions."

He withdrew the dagger from her throat, and felt, rather than saw her sheathing hers quietly, waiting, watching in silence. He was a predator to her, who had pounced on his prey, closing in, but not before the prey turned on him, and played his own game.

"I did not kill the queen," she said flatly, meeting his eyes. "These are not Sumerian poisons, but herbs that resemble them, which I made Nefertiri swallow whole. And that is all that you require to know."

She held out her hand briefly to him, and he caught sight of the true nature of the substance -bluish, green, but rough and flaky, not smooth and powdery as he had initially thought.

Enheduana-Rai bent down then, wiping the remnants of the substance into the gentle stream, cleaning her hands of it, making no further attempt to acknowledge the existence of the Medjai warrior who had held her at knife-point. She was not obligated to answer him; she would have fought him with her dagger, even though she knew his strength and skills to be superior but his compelling presence and intensity of gaze had stirred a defiance as well as a fear in her; it seemed that she needed a defense of taunts and provocation more than she needed physical weapons.

He felt aggravated and yet contrite; she had taken him apart with the deadly skill of an assassin, with a single phrase -when she said that he was caught in his moment of weakness -that by letting the irrational and capricious feelings of the heart leap over his head he had been made the lesser man. How effortless it seemed then, that the rigour of the years of Medjai training and the creed of Medjai patience, endurance and honour heaped on him had disappeared for a moment. And it was the future repetition of this loss that he feared so much; yet it was also the worry that the outwardly unbreakable warrior would overshadow the emotions that he knew also characterised him as a man.

"I am greatly sorry then, Enheduana-Rai, for doubting you and for holding my knife close to your throat, and forgive that presumptuousness I have shown so keenly in your good time," he hesitatingly put forth, knowing that he then that humility was the deepest and most precious form of apology he could offer to her; instinctively, he knew that it was what he constantly needed too, a ready sense of humility that made him aware of his own limits as a warrior-scribe. To not do so was to dishonour his own people and all that he had grown up with.

She paused in her washing, rubbing hands stilling in the slight flowing water, trying to decipher the bewildering turns of this certain Medjai. Surely warriors only chose to show a side that was heroic -the suit of humility, as she had observed, were to be found only in the realm of the feminine.

"You are forgiven, Medjai, I think," she stated slowly, the words unfamiliar on her lips, the position of power she now held over him alien and untried. "Remember what I did to you no more as well."

He breathed audibly now.

"Will you please show me then, the method of healing that you have used on the queen? Unless I am enlightened, I will continue to misunderstand."

She seemed to consider his request and got up from her kneeling position, rummaging around the cloths for a plain oval container of sorts, carved out of a light-coloured wood he had never seen before. It seemed as if his sincere apology had quite unprepared her for the immediate request that came after that; his want to learn more of her unexpectedly softened her and she felt immensely compelled to accommodate all that he asked.

"Look at this first and tell me what you see and what you think it is," she suggested, handing the oval-shaped box to him. "Please, be careful with it as it is all that I have left, and it is costly to me."

He took it uncertainly and marvelled at the durability of the wood and its lightweightedness. Opening it, he saw the very same substance that he called poison a while ago, and upon closer examination, found that the rough and flaky bits broke apart at the slightest shake. There was only very little left, he noticed, and looked up once more, to find Enheduana-Rai and her impenetrable countenance directed at him.

"The blue and the green are colours that dazzle me; I have never seen herbs this colour before. I do not know what it is, he confessed. My knowledge of substances is only limited to what is found in Egypt."

" _Kúât'ïm ehktsún_ ", she let the words fall softly from her tongue, relishing the feel of her native tongue again, even if only to speak the name of a herb, the only tree that yields it in the mountains north of Aram. The last of the young trees were razed to the ground when Ramses overtook the lands and defeated the armies on their own soil.

Aretas nodded his head mutely at her words; the foreign language that she spoke and her knowledge of places unknown intrigued and fascinated him; yet he was afraid to pursue the delicate subject further, for fear that she may bolt at the show of the slightest bit of interest.

He turned his gaze onto the box instead.

"And the value of the herb?" He murmured, holding it under the direct sunlight, examining the way it brought out the metallic in the flakes; he now esteemed it greatly now that he had learnt there were no more such trees.

"Armies kill for it, Medjai," Enheduana-Rai met him square in the eye, before turning away. It suppresses bleeds and wounds in the twinkling of an eye and soldiers covet it for their broken bodies.

"How is it that this miracle of a plant has disappeared?" Aretas probed. She was folding and refolding her squares of cotton cloths, and he knew that his continual questions were starting to agitate her.

Ramses, in his attempt to stop the fight over the trees, set them ablaze so no one can say they claim ownership of anything.

So there is no more left, to your knowledge? He asked, and she shook her head.

None that I know. Much of it was used on the queen, she looked at him pointedly, her eyes glittering with the slightest trace of anger.

He ignored her look, knowing that the remnants of anger he saw would not flare again.

"But you have it with you," he pointed out boldly, a challenge in his eyes, daring her to reveal more to him. "How did you acquire it? Why would you waste this rare commodity on a queen to whom you owe no loyalty?"

She turned back to him unflinchingly.

"Those who are familiar with the arts of healing possess it," she replied in a non-committal way. She had not answered his last question; truth be told, she did not have an answer herself. Perhaps a part of her had hoped that the queen was a kindred spirit. 

"And you are one of them? You are a healer?" He asked, intrigued.

"You may think that if you wish," Enheduana-Rai conceded, stretching out her hand for the box, thankful that he did not press her further.

He held on to it still, fingers curling around the box, refusing to give it back to her yet. He shook it some more, watching yet more rough flakes readily crumble into fine powder. He wondered briefly if she was like this drug she spoke of - would the flakes he saw now crumble into a fine powder if he pressed more?

"You do not answer my question," he frowned. "I asked you who you are."

"Medjai," she said with a hint of impatience, "were you not listening? Must I say it again? It is essential to all who practice the arts of healing," she repeated.

"I am a stubborn man, Enheduana-Rai, as you can attest to," he pointed out. "But I will not ask you more than what you are willing to tell me."

She looked at him again, impenetrable, assessing.

"I will return the box to you now, and I thank you now, on behalf of the Pharaoh, on behalf of Djosyn, that you have saved the life of someone very important to Egypt. You have used a rare commodity, knowing that none more could be found, to save someone whom you know. And for that you have my respect, Enheduana-Rai."

He let go of the box then, into her hand, their palms briefly touching as the box made its transfer.

"All that the Pharaoh possesses is under the protection of the Medjai. Do not forget that."

With that, he turned around and made his way up the stairs, disappearing quietly and quickly, leaving her to wonder what his last words had really meant.

The very capriciousness of her emotions beleaguered her as she sat down among the reeds, knees shaking, mulling over their tense moment and then the uneasy lapse into conversation. The Medjai had seemed a very determined man, she thought, and it was with the greatest effort that she had composed herself and steeled her voice to remain neutral and low as she answered his questions.

But she had been shaking inside; rage, sadness and grief had welled up as soon as she had mentioned Aram and she thanked the gods for the rein on herself that surely some higher power had kept for her.


	13. The Funeral

Homage to you, O ye gods of the Dekans in Anu, and to you, O ye Hememet-spirits in Kher Aha, and to thee, O Unti, who art the most glorious of all the gods who are hidden in Anu, O grant thou unto me a path whereover I may pass in peace, for I am just and true; I have not spoken falsehood wittingly, nor have I done aught with deceit.  
-The Solar Litany, from The Book of the Dead, ca. 1240 B.C

It was nearly eighty sunsets before he saw her properly again, this time as part of Yuya's funeral's procession, after the time of embalming and readying Yuya's _Ka_ for the Afterlife.

She had returned to look on Nefertiri that night and as she had promised, the queen had recovered under the astounding healing medicine that she had shown him. He had seen very little of her afterwards, having rotated shifts with other warrior-scribes, returning to the dwelling of his tribe in the desert.

Aretas stood by the side of the great palace as the procession made its way to Thebes from Hamunaptra, the snake of people that lined the streets stretching as far as the eye could see, mourning the who was to be the next great leader after Ramses II, his son Yuya of tender years. His second son after Yuya, the boy who was now to inherit the throne was barely three years old, weaned by another of his concubines and now renamed after his father.

It seemed appropriate that the boy's sarcophagus would be brought to the palace in the fading light; such that his soul not unaccompanied to the Afterlife almost complete. His procession had already lasted three days without end; the journey from Hamunaptra to Thebes already lasting two on foot.

The concubines and servants walked directly behind the chest of Yuya's possessions and his canopic jars, indistinguishable in their mourning attires, except for the headdresses of the vulture Nekhbet the royal wives wore. She was fully clad in white, a long tunic that started from the neck, covered by beads of sorts that reached to the ankles. The sleeves fanned out sharply, and a red wide belt cinched at a high waistline pleated the excess the loose cotton, allowing the skirt to billow gracefully around her legs.

Even in the most sombre of attires, with a head turned downwards, Enheduana-Rai was striking, matchless, and consummate. He watched her slow approach from the palace steps as the servants carried volumes of treasures and gold started down the dirt path that led to the palace, the song of the singers of Amun taking on a desperate wail as they strummed more forcefully on their instruments.

_Rise up my father, great King_  
So that you may sit in front of them  
The cavern of the broad sky is opened to you  
So that you may stride in the sunshine.  
Stand up for me, Osiris, my father.  
I am your son, I am Horus.  
I have come that I might cleanse and purify you,  
That I might preserve you and collect your bones.  
I say this for you. 

At the entrance of the palace, it seemed that the common servants simply fell away, save for the royal women and the servants who bore the treasures and the sarcophagus of Yuya; the previous snake of the procession was now a short line, with more people falling away to the sides as the sarcophagus began its slow ascend towards the holy ground of the Pharaoh and the greatest of high priests. Only the greatest high priests, royal servants of the gods of Egypt, would chant the last rites in the palace and there only would Ramses II and his priests board the royal barge, which would then take its last symbolic sail down the Nile.

Yuya's journey, from boy to god was almost complete, as the crowd deferentially parted to make way for the sarcophagus; only people who were the most closely associated with the gods remained. The final contact of the sarcophagus was meant only for Ramses himself, the greatest son of Ra granting a godship on his own son, who was soon to join the ranks of the great ones before him.

The royal women now stood to the peripheries, after they ascended the stairs halfway, leaving the side of the sarcophagus after their three-day wakefulness, but not before anointing the sides of the coffin with their myrrh stained palms as their final farewell.

With a final cry from a high priest of Ptah, the palace doors closed, the crowd slowly dispersing, trundling north towards the Nile where they might catch a glimpse of the royal funerary barge in the distance.

There, they pointed, the barge awaited in the distance.

She did not turn her head in the direction of their fingers, not when death was a close companion of hers.

Enheduana-Rai was the one of the last of women to disperse; she stood still at the entrance of the great palace, a figure now diminutive and insignificant as she turned slowly and quietly made her way down to the marshland.

She knew that she should return to her chambers to prepare herself for the funeral feast of the gods, as the other royal women were doing - preening, chattering and laughing - it seemed as if Yuya's death had given them another reason to celebrate. He was the son of Peshet; they had told her that only she, as his mother, was to grief deeply.

She had only seen Yuya four times, a quiet, grave boy who only saw his father every moon cycle. The circumstances that had surrounded his death was something she did not want to think about at the moment.

The quiet of the stream now soothed her, and the placid run of the water sounding strange to her ears. Her head that had been filled with repetitive cries of the mourners, invoking the names of gods, exulting in their might to save the boy's soul now throbbed violently and with a wave of dizziness, swayed slightly. She was however, unprepared for the state of weakness that her body now found itself in, with no sustenance for two days -the people were also made to suffer for the boy's death - there was now a sound behind her and she whirled around; all she saw was a blur of green, barely conscious of a stranger's assuring arms that broke her collapse halfway.

Ramses no longer had a chief queen, she thought. He did not care anymore; the day he had left her bleeding on the floor was the day he had removed that official title from her, effectively labelling her a commoner, an outcast, who was no longer welcome in the his court. Besides, Yuya's death and funeral preparation had taken up his attention in the past months; Egypt still lay in financial ruins after the Exodus - nearly no woman now occupied his bedside. He and his Viceroy tried to save Egypt from ruin, two people administrating critical measures to curb the threat of a famine that would bleed the coffers completely dry.

He was a changed man, she believed. Physically, he was gaunt and hunched, weighed down by the troubles of the once-great land. Temporarily mellowed by grief, yet hardening inside with rage. It was a matter of time before he needed the mass labour to save Egypt's desperate state, gathering his armies in pursuit of the Hebrew slaves that had left in riches months ago.

Nefertiri had watched Yuya's procession from a distance, grateful for her non-descript clothes. Djosyn had stolen her away from her chambers when she was barely able to stand and walk, and had brought her into the reaches of the desert, where his people dwelt.

The lifestyle of luxury that she was familiar with had long fled far, the people of the Medjai living a tried and tough existence in the vastness of the desert. The desert, she marvelled, was a place of protection to those who knew its secrets, but was spelled certain doom for those who got lost in its dunes. She seldom saw water or plants now; its preciousness was never more evident when only hard rock and endless sand surrounded one.

Djosyn and Aretas had rotated shifts with the other Medjai, whisking her away to the safety of their people and the lack of amenities, the simple lifestyle that they led seemed by far a small price to pay if Djosyn was always with her. And that he was, almost never away from her since he was off duty; his people had naturally accepted that she was, if not yet his wife, his unfaltering companion, for whom he had risked life and limb to save.

Again it seemed that their time was borrowed; when he had to return to his duties in the palace, although the element of the forbidden had faded away with each passing day. The hard, nomadic life that was built around the harsh desert was more real to her now than all that she had ever lived through.

She was now a woman of the Medjai; they were not harsh, knowing her as the famed royal queen Nefertiri, but treated her with no royal favours. She awoke with the sun, quietly worked as the other women did; drawing her own water, helped with the herds and educated the young Medjai generation in the lores of Egypt and their customs. Djosyn and Aretas trained the young boys daily; their patience never running out, endless, as they taught and re-taught the ways of the weapons and of combat. She would watch their activities outside Djosyn's tent every sunset, laughing with no small measure of amusement as the young boys tackled him to the ground at the end of every practice.

Her days of sparring as a court hobby and for performance were finished, she mused, although Djosyn insisted that she took up daggers from time to time as a reminder of her royal upbringing.

"You may live with us, but you are still a woman of royal blood; I do not want you to forget that. There will be days where I am not able to protect you," he had told her.

"It is not something I want to think about right now," she had replied easily.

"All who live in and come from the desert are never safe," he had said simply, never once denying that they lived in perilous times; the desert offered its protection to her because the Medjai had called her their own under Djosyn, but it was only a temporary shelter.

She missed Djosyn terribly; he had left her a moon cycle ago to resume his duties, fiercely promising that he would return as quickly as he was allowed to. The political instability of Egypt was of grave concern to the Medjai.

The nights in his arms felt different than they did in the palace chambers, the fierce passion that had overtaken them then had been slowly replaced by a languid repose of contentment found in each other. The lost child had bound them together in their shared grief, and their cries of misery often turned into cries of ecstasy during the nights when their tears were finally spent. 

The stars did shine brighter these nights, she had decided then without the stifling presence of the Egyptian court bearing down on them. What was forbidden and illicit seemed lawful; all the wrong was made right during those days as long as the cocoon of pleasure they had created never ruptured.

Yet time was never a luxury they had.

But now, she sighed, knowing that Djosyn and Aretas were somewhere in the procession, lost in the numerous bodies who mourned the young boy.

Making her way out of the Theban city, she mounted her horse and sat motionless for a while longer before riding the hard way back to the Medjai camp.

It would be quite some time before Djosyn returned to her.


	14. The Medjai and The Woman

The waters of the flood are ferocious in their season. The crocodile awaits upon the sandbank. Yet I have one down to the waters of the Nile that I may wade the flood, my heart brave in its rush. The crocodile was a mouse, the flood dry land to my feet.  
-Ode to the Nile, 18th Dynasty

He had caught her limp body in his arms and doubted that she had even caught sight of him when she crumbled among the reeds. Placing her on a flat patch of grass, it seemed this was the only time he could have her to himself, laughing inwardly at the fool he'd become, recognising fully the irony of her unconscious state and his wakefulness as being the sole period of reprieve they had together.

The sun already hung low in the sky as the distant gleams of firelight emerged, reconstructing the palace and redefining its shape through the harsh shadows and vivid orange that would only glow brighter as the night deepened.

But the growing beauty of the Egyptian night was rivalled by the woman who now lay quietly by his side.

Enheduana-Rai seemed lovelier to him each time he saw her; her unusual looks grew into a beauty that he appreciate more deeply with the passing day and he wanted to censure himself for once thinking of her appearance as strange. She had captured all that was Egypt in her face, even though he now knew that she was not a native of the pharaonic land of rich silts.

But now she was pale and enervated, he noted unhappily, as she walked at an unsteady pace towards the same quiet marshes he had followed her to all those eighty days ago. And he never felt more helpless; he was no healer as she was; all he did was to stroke her brow and sprinkle mildly drops of water which he hoped would revive her. The marshes were never safe at night -predators loomed at large; man had not learnt to control the forces of nature or their creation.

_All that the Pharaoh possesses is under the protection of the Medjai. Do not forget that,_ he had said to her before he left, afraid that he had outstayed his welcome. Did she realise that he meant she never had anything to fear from him anymore, or that she would now be safe with the Medjai?

There was a certain solace that he found in this drawn out silence, feeling the slight breeze cool his bare back, and he turned in its direction, savouring it until he felt her stir.

She opened her eyes drowsily, and scrambled for orientation; he saw recognition and relief flood her face before she spoke.

"Why did you bring me here, Medjai?"

"I did not," he told her, "you brought yourself here."

"And you followed me?" Her following question to him was a challenge, to which he needed more than a moment to give her an answer.

"Yes, I did," Aretas opted for the truth. "You were in the procession with the other women, and I saw you walk towards this place most likely in your half-conscious state before you collapsed."

Enheduana-Rai seemed to give it more thought, before she accepted his answer.

_Illûm kawïlu'ûm ra'bütn Aretas, satirma ni tiq'waá._

Her native tongue rolled off her lips easily, and he thought it elegant sounding, despite his lack of understanding.

"I thank you this time, Aretas," she repeated in the foreign language she had had to learn when she became a concubine.

"You have nothing to thank, Enheduana-Rai," he smiled ironically. "You saved yourself by collapsing; your body needs rest after the tiring procession. I only carried you under the shade of the reeds, out of reach of Ra's rays. No, do not move yet, your body is still tired."

She stilled. "Are you one to command me, Medjai," but this time her voice held no sting, just a faint hint of jest that he realised he liked very much.

Aretas laughed aloud.

"Your body is your own, Enheduana-Rai. Free to do with it what you choose, his eyes gleamed with barely suppressed mirth. Your wish to tire yourself out until you resemble a horse that has lost sight of its watering trough will be a decision of your own."

She smiled then, a full-bodied smile, so much more than the usual meagre upturning of her lips that made his breath catch. He realised that she had never smiled freely before, noting how it transformed her face, making it years younger. He was then able, to imagine her as a young girl, to mentally recreate her youth, where perhaps that smile had been bestowed more frequently and freely.

He offered his hand to pull her up.

"Come, my lady, you need to prepare yourself for the feast of the funeral. Your body now needs rest and sustenance. Allow me to escort you back to your chambers."

She looked at him uncertainly, unable to explain to herself why she would prefer to stay in the quiet marshes in his company than with the women and other courtiers.

"There is no rush, Medjai. I like the solitude here; there is none found back in the palace as the women talk incessantly."

He considered her for a moment, hesitating to say what was on his mind, and finally stood up from his cross-legged position.

"Very well, Enheduana-Rai. I leave to your own counsel and I bid you a goodnight."

Why were there words that were stuck in her throat? Was it pride that now deterred her from saying what she wished him to do?

He had taken the first few steps and stopped completely before he heard her soft request.

"I find that company would be very welcome, Medjai. Solitude can get tiring after a while".

An involuntary smile from him.

"Will I find myself again at pointy end of your blade, Enheduana-Rai?"

"You will have to stay long enough to find out, Medjai."

The impenetrability of her face had seemed to fade from the first time that he had seen her; the woman was still a mystery to him but he ached to hear more about her, to give her a definite shape in his head, other than the shadow that flitted across each time he said her name.

He complied, settling down next to her, the tension and wariness had returned in full force, only that now it was no longer directed at her, but at himself. He had not, all evening, given her any cause for distress but he now feared what a prolonged time with her might bring out in him -

"The Pharaoh is readying his armies, is he not?" She inquired innocently, cutting off his rambling thoughts. 

"That is true, Enheduana-Rai. There is no need for me to be unyielding about a matter as important as a war, as far as Pharaoh is concerned. It is probably no more a secret to those who live in cities -men of the streets - tax collectors, bakers, of all sorts are called to fight for their land and claim back what the Hebrews had taken from them."

"So it is certain then, Egypt is in turmoil," she sounded disturbed.

"Yes, Egypt is," he agreed without hesitation, seeing no reason to conceal the truth from her.

She looked at him directly, close-cropped dark hair, beard that cupped the chin and covered the area above the upper lip, muscular and unsmiling, with his upper body exposed, as imposing as a guard can become.

"Tell me about yourself, Medjai."

The change in subject was so abrupt that he faltered, blinking in confusion.

Enheduana-Rai peered at him with eyes that were diligent, and he almost thought that the question was a trap.

"The Medjai are the protectors of the Pharaohs; that much you know," he started out.

She waved him on a little impatiently, beads in her hair clicking together, shaking their protests.

"It is said that a falcon, which was owned by a man and his family, saved the life of the Senuset, one of the rulers of the Middle Kingdom. In his gratitude, he offered the man riches of his kingdom, but he refused. He brought the man instead to the high priest, who then proclaimed that the man's descendents would grow great because of his heroic deed -that his descendents would be honoured by always being by the side of the Pharaohs themselves."

"So I see. No one seemed to know that, for the Medjai are assumed to be ordinary men of the street who came into good fortune as the guards of the Pharaoh," Enheduana-Rai murmured, staring at him, realising that she had placed herself in a position of difficulty. Surely Aretas must want the same answer to the question she had just asked him.

He must have read that same trepidation on her face.

"I did tell you before, that I will not ask anything of you what you are not willing to tell," he said gently.

"I thank you again, Medjai. You have truly great tolerance towards Enheduana."

"Rai, it is more than bare tolerance; it is much more than what you think," he whispered then, using only the last part of her name intimately, looking into her eyes deeply, and it seemed to her that his voice had turned intimate, a wave of sensuality that threatened to carry her down a shivering waterfall, to the point of no return. "Do you trust me now, enough to tell me about yourself?"

She wondered why he had to quench this burning thirst by asking her to answer questions that he was not she was ready to tell a man whom she had at best, a somewhat offhand relationship with.

"I..."

But before she could say anything more, it seemed as though he had suddenly changed his mind, capturing her lips with a hunger that jolted her so strongly that she shivered at the point of contact, holding her face tenderly in his rough hands, filling his own fingers with her straight, short locks.

And in that kiss lay fire, desperation and glory.

She felt as if she tasted the beginnings of a smouldering flame, wanting him to pull away before the small fire was fanned into an inferno, but too drugged to summon her willpower to stop him from doing so, and continued to dare fate by responding to his touch.

Her arm had snaked around his neck desirously, drawing him closer in the sweetness of the kiss, and she responded keenly, fitting and moulding herself in his tightening embrace.

Aretas would have lost himself in this intoxicating woman, if not for the sudden sound behind them of a creature that had crawled out of the water that made them both jump.

He held her forehead to his, desire still evident in his eyes, glazed black burning pools of liquid greeted her as she pulled away to look into his face.

"It is not safe here," he whispered harshly to her, not knowing if he meant that she was not safe from the prowling nocturnal creatures or from him.

Her arms were still around him, tight but pliant when he gently uncoiled them from his neck.

"Go, go now. Prepare for the feast," he urged. "You need sustenance and then rest after that."

She nodded, taking a deep, cleansing breath.

"I will see you there, in a while, Medjai?" It was an uncertain question, that revealed to him her insecurities, and he wanted nothing more then but to allay her fears.

"You will, Rai."

It was more than a statement; it was a promise, one that he fervently hoped she had discerned.

Enheduana-Rai's face was inscrutable; and with a last glance back at him, she turned and disappeared into the winding corridors of the palace, taking a longer, but deserted route that he recognised.

The gods help him; he was falling in to the same forbidden desire that had taken hold Djosyn, and all the injustice that Djosyn felt at the time of Nefertiri's injury returned with the strength of a gale whose purpose was to blow him over, but he found that in the calm centre of a storm, all he wanted to do was weep.


	15. Decisions

O'Connell Residence, Cairo, 1931

The Egyptian thunderstorm that was brewing outside seemed to mirror the look on Rick's face as he lumbered down the stairs for breakfast. Ardeth, Alex and Evy already sat at the table, dutifully waiting for the O'Connell head of the house to appear.

"A cheery morning to all." Evy smiled widely in greeting.

She received a glare from Rick, who looked, for all things, miserable.

"Now, darling. The sickness afflicts one at most unpredictable times. Thank the heavens, Rick, that your fever was a result of your lack of water and not because of some unnamed curse."

"And I am out of my mind to be staying in Egypt any longer after what"

"Fortunately, you have earned your right to be out of your mind today, if not for"

Alex's mind was only half-focused on the O'Connell banter; the dialogue with Ardeth a few hours ago in the wee hours of the morning was still playing through her head.

He was not a man to trifle with, yet she found the ease by which he held and maintained a conversation admirable; she had never really been able to accomplish that; it was only a matter of time before she opted for time alone to gather her thoughts. They seemed alright sharing the same air for breathing, she concluded, as long as they did not touch. There was no hateful degeneration of sorts, no repulsiveness, for the moment.

"Coffee, anyone?" Alex motioned to a warm pot.

Three mugs were raised at her question and thrust in front of her.

"Please." Ardeth automatically said. He saw her startled look and easily offered, "The Medjai have heard of the luxury item of coffee; but we do not drink it often."

The pile of food that had appeared on the table after she had sat down was worrying; Alex knew that two men and two women could not possibly finish it all.

"Right," Evy took a sip of the hot brew, closing her eyes in great satisfaction, before stretching out her hand towards the food.

"Please, help yourselves with the food. Eggs, bacon, bread and coffee for three of us. Wheat bread, a bit of oil, cold cuts of meat, beans and maize for Ardeth and his other commanders."

Alex turned around, astounded to find that two other Medjai warriors had materialised behind them, standing silently behind their chief. They were similarly dressed in black, turbans over their heads and scarves covered most of their faces save their eyes.

The warrior that stood to the right of his chief pulled down his scarf, revealing himself as Khaliq, the man whom she thought nearly drove her to her grave the night before.

They whispered in low tones; the O'Connells gave no heed to Ardeth and his commanders, seemingly unperturbed that the warriors' had stepped into their home with no difficulty, much less with no sound behind them.

Alex found herself grappling with the speed by which they spoke, as her ears caught individual words like 'burial' and 'the others', realising that there was something that ran much deeper between the Medjai and the O'Connells which they had not told her. What were those secrets that they kept so close to their chests?

Ardeth motioned his second warrior forward.

"You already know Khaliq. This is my other commander, from the 5th tribe of the Medjai, Hussein."

Hussein inclined his head the same way Ardeth inclined his in greeting, greeting them formally in Arabic and then in English.

"Why, Ardeth, I believe you are only starting to show us the extent to which the Medjai are educated in the manners of diplomacy or shall I say, formal court greetings?" Evy quipped, grinning at Hussein.

"Evy, you underestimate us," Ardeth replied, "All of my commanders are sound in English, and fight as well as, if not better, than I do. They are experienced and seasoned in matters that pertain to the Pharaohs and it is from them that I have learnt all that I have."

"Truly, Ardeth? Rick and I always learn something new about you."

"It is no secret -I consider them my equals as well as leaders and I value their advice and judgement seriously," he continued, "I am only chief because my older brother and father were killed in a raid nearly fifteen years ago. What we are about to say will not be kept a secret from them too."

The sombre mood was dispelled quickly as Khaliq and Hussein sat down next to Ardeth, patting his shoulder in a show of moral support.

"Dr. Khalan," Khaliq broke his bread, "I trust you rested well with the O'Connells?"

"Erof course, very well, Khaliq." She refrained from referring to his driving that had nearly driven her out of her skin with worry.

Next to her, Ardeth and Hussein continued in low tones, Hussein pausing only to scoop himself maize and beans onto his bread.

Alex exhaled heavily, moaning silently. What would Bembridge say should they discover their scholar, whom they sent on a relatively simple expedition to recover scrolls, was now involved with a secret society of menacing looking men who dressed totally in black, who wielded weapons and spoke of equally menacing subjects such as death and burial? On the positive note, she thought, breakfast with the O'Connells was a titillating affair, she speculated, if this happened every day.

"We have accounted for the remaining Medjai," Ardeth announced to all, "the warriors who are left make up only two tribes." There was sadness in his eyes and Alex wondered what had happened in the course of the days that had happened to the O'Connells and the Medjai. His words merely confirmed her suspicion that there was a lot more than what met the eye, or to what she knew of course -their sudden switch of emotions at her mention of Hamunaptra, Ardeth's tribe that had seen a dramatic reduction

"So much for small breakfast talk." Alex began cautiously, thinking that the direct approach would be best. "Let us not skirt the issue of what will happen later."

"What will happen later? Nothing will possibly happen later." Rick echoed grimly.

"Of course, darling," Evy interjected. "Nothing obvious will happen for you. You are ill and you are staying bed today and you are eating all that I cook. That is possibly quite the end of story for you, darling, until you recover."

"As for us, it will be a completely different matter," Alex muttered under her breath.

The Medjai and the O'Connells looked askance at her.

"The work of an Egyptologist is not confined to the library or the museum." Alex stated baldly, issuing a challenge to Evy.

"You are very right, Alex. I have to say, that, well, first-hand experience is always eye-opening." She was skirting the issue again, Alex thought in frustration.

No one seemed willing to resume the talk of last night; Rick's mood was never more sour and Ardeth simply sat back, waiting. No one really wanted to talk about Hamunaptra, yet no one could deny that Hamunaptra still played a dastardly central role in their lives, ever since it infringed itself some ten years ago.

"Dr. O'Connell," Alex began formally, seeing Evy start at the use of her salutation, changing the dynamics of the conversation, "I have to request that this expedition carries on, no matter what you or the Medjai are talking about at present in your code language. And I can understand - after all I am a stranger who only arrived yesterday and still recognise that we are at the preliminary stages of our acquaintance."

"Alex," Evy began, "We -"

"Dr. Khalan," Ardeth started out at the same time.

"...but I do have an obligation to Bembridge, even if you all do not think this is something fit for undertaking"

"Alex, I think you are onto something here." Evy smiled mysteriously. "You are after all attached to the Cairo Museum under the umbrella that screams 'Bembridge' in our faces, the society that Cairo Museum so aims to please. Did you think that we were going to refuse and risk a pay-cut?"

"I thought..." Alex sputtered.

"Egypt is in my blood. Hamunaptra or no." She clarified. Rick was looking glum, she thought. Her husband was in need of a placating session later.

"The Medjai are the ones who know the routes by heart."

Ardeth nodded. "My commanders Khaliq and Hussein are here simply to tell me that there is stilla lot of work to be done in back in the tribe. They will be in charge of them. We, however, will set out tomorrow. It is about two days' ride to Hamunaptra."

"We?" Alex repeated.

"If anyone is an authority on the topography of Egypt, you're looking at him now, babe, our tall, dark and handsome warrior in black." Rick threw in easily, thumb pointed towards Ardeth.

Ardeth frowned; Alex bristled.

"And yes, we. Despite everything, we are unwilling to let you go by yourself. Just imagine, by the end of the trip you might even be grateful that our presence might have managed to save your life in one way or another." He grinned. "Remind me to lend you one of my handguns."

Alex was speechless.

A knock on the front door halted their plans.

Evy got up in a second, and returned with a telegram in her hands, frowning.

"From Dr. Whitsun." She said curtly.

"Ah, improper admissions aside - that oily creep who still hopes for polygamy. I have no intention of sharing my wife with him." Rick's reply was immediate.

"No one said you had to, darling." She was still preoccupied, perusing the telegram with the eyes of a falcon.

"There has been a sudden change in plans. He says I've been assigned to catalogue the latest collection on the Ptolemaic dynasty. It's a shipment that has just come in."

Evy frowned, hopes of travelling to Hamunaptra dashed.

Rick turned to Ardeth and Alex, already anticipating what his wife had to do.

"Ardeth will bring you there. Without us."

"I do not like the sound of this. It seems as if they are riding off into trouble without us around." Rick lay down on the bed tiredly.

Khaliq and Hussein had readied horses for Ardeth and Alex, and left immediately thereafter, not before

"Admit it, Rick," Evy touched his cheek. "You just want to be part of the adventure."

He grumbled slightly, holding her tight against him.

"Just as well that I'm too ill to sit atop a horse.

"You'll recover," she said succinctly.

"Curse that cable from Dr. Whitsun. Doesn't he know that you are 'fully committed' - as stated in the Bembridge contract - to this expedition? Imagine him calling you away for something as petty as cataloguing."

"Why, Rick O' Connell, you had been so adamant about everything to do with Hamunaptra and now - if I'm not hearing wrongly from you - you're actually suggesting that I should go?"

Rick shrugged suggestively and left his smart-mouthed wife to fill in the blanks.

Evy sighed.

"Cataloguing is part of my work, darling. It's not as if I am cataloguing useless events; it's the artefacts found a decade ago in Tutankhamun's tomb! And I'll admit that it is also difficult not to be excited over the latest tomb find! It's just that," she frowned, "I'm just not sure if I trust Ardeth with Alexandra."

"Aha!" Her husband raised a wagging finger in front of her nose. "You fear that Ardeth will kill her in cold-blood as well don't you, wrap her parts that he will conveniently cut up and throw everything into the Nile so as to protect the secrets of Hamunaptra?" Rick offered blatantly.

She smacked him arm, producing a yelp from him.

"There is something about them, Rick. I don't quite know what, but it is very much none of my business. Alex Khalan is," she struggled for words, "is somewhat quite different from what I expected. She is not the old Bembridge woman on a cane, neither is she aged, nor exceedingly ugly. Dare I say Ardeth seems quite taken with her?" Evy raised a brow.

Rick shook his head. "Maybe you're reading way too much into it honey."

"I don't quite know what though. And this will either drive a wedge or build a bridge." Evy said.

He held her tightly, grateful that she was still alive in his arms, the agony of watching her die before his eyes to difficult to replay.

"So for the sake of preventing the next Apocalypse, let us hope then that Dr. Alexandra Khalan has no itchy fingers on her."


	16. The Ride Out to Hamunaptra

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears  
Todays of past Regrets and future fears -  
Tomorrow? -Why, Tomorrow I may be  
Myself with yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years  
-The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám

The Medjai were a touch and go people, at least, that was what she was finding out with great alarm.

Ardeth had been waiting by the horses when she emerged from breakfast just slightly after the dawn, dressed very much the way she had seen him from day one, clad entirely in black, folds upon folds of cloth hiding what she suspected might be too fine a physique.

She was irrationally incensed, at herself, at Ardeth, maddened that she all she noticed was the physicality of him, of the stray thoughts that she had no control of, or rather, had no desire to control. The academic backing she had built her confidence around was difficult to appreciate, when emotions that were suppressed for long had resurfaced.

Dressed in her oldest pair of black pants and white shirt, hair tied up most conveniently as possible, Alexandra Khalan hoped for the hundredth time that she knew what she was getting herself into.

Arabian stallions, one black, one white. Beautiful, strong horses, saddled and unruffled, the powerfully built man besides them stroking their manes, whispering melodies of encouragement, readying them for their journey into hell's hole. She loathed interrupting the moment that she was savouring with her own eyes, watching the warrior's extraordinary gentle handling of the creatures, amazed at the open emotions in his eyes and face.

But the sweetness in his face hooded itself perceptibly into a coolness as she approached.

"Are they _Salwaqi_ horses, Ardeth?" Alex asked softly.

He looked at her in surprise, delight flooding his face.

"They are of mixed breeds." His face softened, as he continued, "Come, let us be away. We will talk more when we are well into the journey. There is a hard journey in front of us."

It was not as if she was unused to travelling with little, but the speed by which she was whisked to the front of the O'Connell house was dazzling. The O'Connells were waving somewhat cynically, hands raised halfway in midair with identical smirks on their faces as they watched her mount her stallion with difficulty. But she did not have the time to consider that lay behind those smirks; Ardeth reined his horse and kicked away from the house.

The soreness that she felt after the first hour was forgotten as the first rays of the sun rose to greet them. They rode in silence, as silhouettes framed by the varying landscape of the desert, hard-edges of the plateaus and blue dunes that transformed gold at the coax of the sun's rays as their silent company.

"We stop here, for a while," Ardeth announced firmly when the sun crawled upwards signifying midday, and they slowed the horses to a trot.

They dismounted and grabbed their waterskins, quenching their thirsts, sitting in the crevices of the hard-edged mesa, thankful that the sharp drop of the cliff provided them with a miniscule amount of shade.

"You were asking about the horses this morning, Dr. Khalan. The black one," he motioned to the stallion, "he is indeed a beautiful horse. He is a valued _Dahman_ , an ideal blending of the _Kuhaylan_ and _Salwaqi_ horses. He has the elegance of the _Saqlawi_ , and the endurance of the _Kuhaylan_. Strong, dependable, thought to run in the courts of King Suleiman." Ardeth affirmed.

Alex stared, transfixed at the beauty of the horses, particularly the pure white stallion.

"And the white one?" she questioned.

"A straight Egyptian stallion. Also with the _Salwaqi_ strain. They are good horses, and they serve the Medjai well."

"I can see that, Ardeth. I shall loathe to part with them." She said fondly.

He looked curiously at her then.

"May I ask how you came by with the knowledge of horses? Many women are not very fond of them."

Her eyes grew distant with the memory.

"This is the second time that I am in Egypt actually. Not as if I do have many hoarded memories of Egypt, since the last time I visited was at the age of 4, but well, I've seen Morocco and Hadhramout when I was older and hence the more developed brain remembers horses like these there."

"Ah, yes. The holy city of A'ad. My grandmother came from Aynat, the east of Tareem in Hadhramout. You are very well travelled then, Dr. Khalan. The history of ancient Yemen is very interesting. " Ardeth complimented.

Alex waved the compliment away and chose to press on.

"Tell me, Ardeth, the extent of your education. It is not an insult, if you are wont to misunderstandings. I wish to know more about Medjai culture, if that is what you also wish to tell me."

He raised a brow at her, unsure at how to approach her question, and then decided that perhaps honesty was best. Brutal honesty had worked well when the Medjai threatened those who disturbed the sleep of any Pharaoh, and he decided that it would work well now with Dr. Khalan.

"The amount of education given to one is proportional to the amount by which he wishes to be educated and knowledgeable. Basic reading and writing are given to all, but obtaining further knowledge begs deeper studying, of course."

"And you chose to learn more?"

I am not the eldest in my family and therefore had a lot more time to spend with teachers who spent a lot of time beating me over the head with books." His lips twitched as he regarded her sideways.

Alex could not stop the unbidden smile that appeared on her face as she imagined a young Ardeth, carefree and playful, disciplined into perusing his books. The young Ardeth then did not worry about the burdens of having to become Medjai chief; who could ever predict the series of deaths that had made him the leader?

"I am grateful for those teachers," he continued, "for they taught me all that I needed to know. The heroic side of a warrior, must after all be balanced, don't you agree?" Ardeth told her wryly.

She nodded her head sagely, and took another sip from her waterskin.

"Stop that, you will not have enough for later," he involuntarily placed his hand on her wrist to stop the flow of the water into her mouth and jerked backwards -he was hit once more by the same vision of the blood, the knife and the man and the woman. He shut his eyes tight for a moment, willing it to leave him, begging Allah for his mercy and took a look at her face.

By the expression that he saw, he knew then that she had seen it too. There were many questions -did she dream at night too? Did she see the exact same things he saw? How is he linked to this certain Dr. Khalan if they were able to see the same things at the power of a single touch? He needed to ask her if she knew the answers to all that he had asked, but found himself strangely at a loss for words, confounded even further by the fact that he had just easily talked with her.

"If not Allah, you, doctor, would help me," He whispered shakily, not trusting himself to speak in the tongue of the foreigners, comforted in the Arabic that spouted out involuntarily, past his lips.

It was a plea, Alex realised, a plea to the heavens, or to her, that he wanted to be relieved of the strange occurrence that plagued him, and now, her.

"Ardeth, I'm just another blind person trying to help you across the same dirt paths I can't see too!" She murmured back to him, wanting to offer comfort, but not knowing how to.

He nodded slightly, seeing that they were both unready to examine what had happened, knowing also that they had to get down to it; jumping away from each other was not going to stop this cursed ailment.

"And we will find out that it is, Ardeth, we will."

"Yes," he agreed heavily, "We must move on now. There will be no more stops until night falls."

They did not speak anymore after they mounted their stallions, each preoccupied with his/her own thoughts.

The sun hung low in the sky, the unchanging landscape taking on an azure hue. Ardeth let it go by largely unnoticed; he had seen enough spectacular sunsets to take this particular one for granted.

The admiration that he thought he felt for Alexandra Khalan was growing; that woman had not complained and nitpicked about the length of time that they had stayed on her horse. But there was a centeredness about her that was not unwelcome at all; she seemed an unusual person who assuredly dealt out riches through her speech, measuring wealth that was given out and the wealth that returned, all in the currency of words. No woman had challenged him like this one did; she was razor sharp when she needed to be, with the elusive charm like a butterfly that he struggled to catch.

She had not said a word ever since the midday break at the edge of the rocks; yet the weariness compounded with a sudden sense of disorientation had made her incapable of sensible communication.

He was beginning to tire as well and imagined that it must have been infinitely worse for her, since she was unaccustomed to horseback riding.

Ardeth turned to her solemnly.

"The skies do not seem to be favourable. We must stop here for the night."

Alex shrugged; her head had been in a haze from the excessive heat of the sun and was thankful that her expectations of fainting halfway were still unrealised; whatever the desert man said was alright with her.

They set up their tents tiredly, sitting on the small mat that she had spread in front of the fire that Ardeth started.

She did not think that there was anything amiss with the extended silence that hung between them; she was comfortable with periods of stillness, in which she felt dwelt the lesser things that were appreciated.

"There is a missing section in Medjai history", Ardeth broke the silence as he thought necessary. "I did not tell you then, but I am telling you now, Dr. Khalan. The scribes you have spoken about, from your Babylonian writer, who writes of men with marking branded on their flesh, are none other than the Medjai. I now have reason to believe that the records that the ancient Medjai were destroyed, or perhaps, as you say, hidden."

"Are you saying that there has been, or rather, is a missing section in your annals, because the scribes who recorded the history of the Exodus and the plagues never survived?" It was getting too difficult to think, much less analyse what he said. "Please, I ask that you speak plainly."

"There is truth in what you wish to find, Dr. Khalan, if you wish to know that you are not merely chasing after mirages of the desert." He provided.

"You believe in myths and legends?"

"Myths and legends sometimes are called such because they are separated from us by a long period of time. It is not to say that all are untrue. Because the Medjai have deep roots in Egyptian royalty does not mean now that it applies no longer."

"So you do agree with me then? I mean, you do not believe that I am insane?"

"I never indicated otherwise, did I? The O'Connells and I only recoiled because you mentioned Hamunaptra. The Medjai annals are more or less complete, save for the glaringly empty hole during Ramses' rule. Hamunaptra then, must be visited once more. What you are researching is also very important to the tribe."

"Did your people not try to salvage what you could then?"

"There are stories, Dr. Khalan. But the reverse of what I just said is also right. Sometimes stories can merely be the children of imagination."

"I disagree, Medjai. The stories are after all, part of your heritage, are they not? A Medjai who forsakes his history is perhaps only one who is half complete." She objected, yet inwardly criticising herself for censuring him when she had chosen the path of not dwelling on her own past.

"You play devil's advocate, Dr. Khalan," He gave her an assessing look. "My duties as Commander of the tribes demand me to discern what is truly important and what is not."

"Aye, that you are then," She sighed, not wanting to argue any longer.

But Ardeth continued as if he had not read her expression, his face catching the firelight, haunted and unseeing, staring into the flames that danced and cackled before his stillness.

"Stories that are passed down by word of mouth, through thousands of years. You do not know how pure they are. You, Dr. Khalan, as a student of history, should know above all, that not all sources are to be trusted." He said pointedly.

"Ardeth," she sighed again. "I work with ancient sources, all of them thousands of years old. If the time difference is the factor that renders the sources unbelievable, then my research is all for naught. You know how every bit is precious to me. From travel writing, to word of mouth stories, small pictograms; these may inadvertently be the small pieces of the jigsaw."

"Perhaps you are right, Dr. Khalan. You speak very academically." He agreed. "But an inquiring mind can also harm one. Those who exalt the tangible and the empirical may one day be taught a lesson."

"What are you alluding to, Ardeth?" She asked baldly.

He murmured something so softly in Arabic; she strained to hear him.

"I am sorry, sometimes my English fails me."

Phrases, fragments of sentences, which she stumbled over and did not quite understand, feeling the familiar constriction in the chest that urged her on to discover the deeper need for the recovery of the scrolls, rather than to purely look to the satisfaction of Bembridge as a stimulus for their recovery.

"I did not say this aloud before Dr. Khalan, and the truth is that I did not, and still do not completely trust any expedition that is sent out to haul up the ruins of Egypt." Ardeth looked her in the eye. "There is much more trouble that what it always expected. Rick O'Connell was never a believer in things that cannot be touched or seen. But I think he might now."

"Yes, your adventures with the O'Connells, so I have been told. The poise against fatality takes more than endurance, don't we all know that." She muttered exasperatedly.

"I never meant it offensively, Dr. Khalan," Ardeth countered seriously. "It was not under the best of circumstances that O'Connell and the Medjai met nearly a decade ago."

"All at Hamunaptra?"

"All at Hamunaptra," He confirmed, falling silent.

But she could not let it go, not when Ardeth and the O'Connells had referred to that legendary famed city of the dead in terms so real.

"Will you not tell me what happened in Hamunaptra? Is your silence on that to last forever?" She pressed in, enslaved to curiosity, haunted by this inner impulse that had only throbbed harder and louder ever since they neared Hamunaptra.

"I ask for your patience, Dr. Khalan. We all have not yet recovered from the shock of events. Perhaps I will tell you later."

"But it was a decade ago." She argued calmly.

"Yes, but trouble reared its ugly head again very recently."

Alex regarded him for a moment longer, before staring back into the fire. He did appear to be a devotee of solitude and silence as much as she did, guarded in every way, cutting a very striking but lone figurehead of his tribe; his encounters with the unknown meant to always be more penetrating than those of the ordinary man.

His thoughts are weightier, she thought, stranger and seldom ever without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions that might otherwise be easily dispelled by a glance, a laugh, or an exchange of comments, possibly concern him unduly.

"You are tired," Ardeth interrupted her musings on him. "Sleep. See these tents? That's what they are for. I will keep watch."

"Show me your scimitar, Ardeth. Let me clasp it in my hands." She suggested, disregarding his quiet command.

"When I have only met you a few days ago?" He said lightly, waving off her request.

"Please, Ardeth. Satisfy this urge." She insisted.

"So that you might run it through me? I think not." He raised a brow at her half-seriously.

"Would I be so asinine as to run a sword through my only guide in the desert and to Hamunaptra?" She challenged dryly.

He eyed her suspiciously before consenting, knowing that he would not act impulsively such as this, holding the handle of his blade, relishing its comfortable feel before handing it to her.

She held the blade horizontally, the silver curve of the blade winking unabashedly in the dim light, boasting stridently about the amount of blood that had graced its tips. Its grip felt familiar in her hands, and stretched her arm out, imitating an attack with the scimitar, twirling the blade anticlockwise before it lay in her hand in its starting position. At the back of her mind, a memory nagged at her, telling her knives and daggers were secure in her hands, although the only real memory that flashed before her eyes was that of her as a young girl standing next to Aunt Cordelia, learning to domestic skills, something so banal as the slicing of vegetables.

He noted it all, perplexed, watching her handling of his weapon with fluid grace and ease. The technique in which she had just twirled his blade was the exact same movement that he executed, riding his horse at a breakneck speed towards the Anubis Army, scimitar high in the air, war cries of the Medjai from his lips, the pointy tip aching to run itself through the heads of the dog-like creatures.

"Are you also trained in the arms of war, in addition to being a scholar of ancient cultures, Dr. Khalan?"

"Such flattery. But the answer is sadly, no." She laughed then, tossing the blade back to him, which he caught perfectly with an alarmed look.

The sheathing of the long blade had a sonorous ring that he never tired of hearing; now he felt as if he needed to plumb the depths of this certain Dr. Khalan.

"Perhaps you do not have remembrance of it."

"No remembrance?" She laughed again. "Why? Think you that I might have a clandestine past? I think I would remember something as significant as having fought with a sword before. All that I know of scimitars come from the lores of A Thousand and One Nights which I have been ardently infatuated with for a long time."

"You are so many things, Dr. Khalan; in the house of the O'Connells you talk about the ancients as if they rule you, and then you spoke of your preference for night instead of day, and the way you held my scimitar is not what I might expect of someone who clumsily handles a weapon for the first time"

"I'm not sure if you got that right."

"...and you slip through the fingers of anyone who tries to catch a hold on any part of you," He said honestly.

Alex was bewildered; the multitude of sides that Ardeth was talking about felt as if he was only waxing lyrical, and she knew that he never meant it in any other obtuse way than what he had said.

"Then maybe you are only seeing an illusion. I might say the same of you."

"I am what you see," He smiled slightly.

"As am I, since you have replied my question as such," Alex gritted her teeth in frustration. "Everyone finds as much of the great complexity as he carries in himself, from the diseases of the soul to pointless aspirations and the dark lords that battle within."

"'To behold the unseen then,is a gift bestowed'," Ardeth quoted.

"What?"

"The Sufis believe in the bounty of Allah. What I just said is their creed. They seek the unseen or things not yet revealed." He gazed upwards and frowned at the clouds that patched the night sky, preventing the stars that told him the position of the sun. "Is it not useful in this case?"

"The gods are never obedient to the humans who serve them," she answered wryly.

"But now the gods you speak of surely watch over your slumber at night. You do see what I am telling you?" He said to her slowly, as if one would gently chide a disobedient child, yet not admitting that the choice of not sleeping was also due to the horrifying vision of blood and blades that he was helpless against.

"You are right, Ardeth. I hear you loud and clear. All sand and the colour brown, that Egypt is." Alex said in jest. She got up and stretched her wobbly calves before lifting the flap of the tent.

The description of Egypt as brown and sandy wanted to make him laugh.

"You do not know Egypt yet, Dr. Khalan, even though you proclaim to have visited before. It may be a good idea if I show you a place that is almost unimaginable before we proceed on to the city of the dead." He called out.


	17. The Physical and The Supernatural

A realm of pleasance, many a mound,  
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn  
Full of the city's stilly sound,  
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round  
The stately cedar, tamarisks,  
Thick rosaries of scented thorn,  
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks  
Graven with emblems of the time  
-Recollections of Arabian Nights, Lord Alfred Tennyson

They slept very little that night, rousing into action as the desert awoke with the sun. Alex strolled a few paces away from the tent, arms around herself, pensively inhaling the slight morning dew and the musty smell of the nearby horses. The remnants of the monstrous plateau lay in chunks around her, much untrodden, dotted with an occasional tree.

Ardeth was readying the horses, his robes fluttering in the cool morning breeze, his head and long hair free of its usual turban, lines of weariness etched in his face.

She walked back to their makeshift camp, humming an old tune absently, mounting her stallion. It was strangely far easier than the first time she had struggled to get up at the O'Connell residence, the familiarity of her seat on the horse inexplicable even to herself.

"The triumphal march from _Aida_!"

She looked at him in great surprise.

"A very memorable tune." He glanced up at her sitting on her horse, his hand stilled on her saddle, eyes turning into a warm honey colour in recognition at the tune she hummed.

"Indeed it is," She drew back in surprise. "But I never expected you to know this!"

"The myth of the savage native, who only knows how to wield a sword in attack or defence?" He questioned ironically.

She reddened in embarrassment, speechless that he had read her instantly.

"That an Egyptian might not know of an opera written about his own country? An opera that exalts the ancient past of Egypt?" He teased further.

"I, well..."

" _Aida_ was my first 'western' encounter," His eyes crinkled with the memory.

Alex watched him, entranced at what he was saying.

"With opera no less. My brother and I had visited the Cairo Opera house when it was last performed. We never knew what to expect, our experiences being limited to the Arabian belly dances and music that was played with it. The voices of the women singers had startled me out of my skin when they sang at an impossibly high pitch. But the foreigners were very much enjoying themselves, pleasured into half-lidded eyes and shallow breaths."

"One must have particularly tuned ears and a romantic heart for it." Alex smirked, remembering her own brush with Verdi's Aida when she was with Cordelia in Bulgaria.

"Perhaps so, Dr. Khalan. Anyhow, only after a while was I able to stop fidgeting and enjoy the foreign tunes that simply grew sweeter and sweeter in my ears. They sang in a language that I did not understand, which I found out was Italian. An Italian man had sat next to me, and translated nearly word for word all that they sang, taking pity on my lost looks." He mounted his own stallion and urged it on, pacing it with hers.

"It must have been an experience then for the young Ardeth, but on hindsight? The ignorant foreigners romanticising Egypt and the ages of the Pharaohs? You probably walked out with brows twitching at the ill-mannered portrayal of the Orient." She laughed.

"Not at all. The times of the Pharaohs are so ancient that any imagination in recreating them is embraced."

"I find Verdi's eloquence heart-wrenching," She said simply.

"You understand Italian then?"

"No, I don't; I've only read his libretti, translated, of course. Academics aren't almighty beings, Ardeth." She reprimanded gently.

Ardeth smiled sardonically at her reproof, envisioning the unshakable Dr. Alexandra Khalan struggling with languages other than those in the Semitic branch.

"You like Opera then?" He asked of her, seeing her wrinkle her nose slightly.

"Just _Aida_ , actually."

"'My heart foreboded this thy dreadful sentence, and to this tomb that shuts on thee its portal, I crept unseen by mortal. Here from all where none can more behold us, clasped in thy arms I resolved to perish'." He quoted, wondering why it was this particular sentence that was fixed firmly in his memory, wondering about its prophetic worth.

"How fitting it seems now that we are here," she mused. "You are an amazing man, Ardeth Bay," Alex nodded her head in approval. "There is no man of my acquaintance who can remember the name of an opera they have attended, much less remember its libretto. Who would think a hardened Medjai chief might know anything of Verdi?"

"We do not remember things which are of no importance to us." Ardeth said cryptically.

"Aida is nonetheless a romantic opera," She insisted. "One can never take its idealism too seriously."

"Idealism you say?" His eyes widened in protest. "When Radames and Aida die together in a sealed tomb?"

"Idealism is not just confined to a happily ever after, think you? They die together, in peace everlasting as Isis greets them on high, as Amneris so sings. Idealistic doesn't even describe it." She snorted with no slight amount of distaste.

"I do not understand you, Dr. Khalan," He stated again. "How can one so passionately strive for the things of the old, and yet not carry a grain of idealism?"

But that moment was lost. He stopped in mid-sentence, eyes turned towards the sky, so she thought.

Ardeth's eyes had narrowed on the looming sand dune above, silently upbraiding himself for not taking precaution as they rode under the mammoth dunes; he was becoming less careful ever since he found himself preoccupied with his dreams.

There were 7 riders who charged noisily down at them, its leader impressively large; they were not the typical nomadic tribe that was subsistent in nature, and possibly bore symbols of a fearsome Nubian tribe that often conflicted with the Medjai.

The stallions that they sat on reared their heads in fright, Ardeth drawing his scimitar in grim anticipation as he fought for his balance on the skittish horse.

"Enemies, Ardeth?" Alex shouted in a panic, trying to calm her stallion down.

"Stay behind me!" He yelled back, drawing his short dagger in the other hand, feeling uselessly for more weapons when the odds seemed so against him.

But the odds against them had been infinitely greater when he saw the second wave of the Anubis warriors descending on them beardless young warriors who had yet to complete their training, breaths heaving from the exertion.

"We have to ride fast! Away from them! Ardeth, do not stay still!"

"No!" He said roughly. "Our horses are not well rested enough to ride fast and extensively. We stay, and fight."

Ardeth now fought a mental battle, frantically clearing the repetitive superimposed visions of the helpless Medjai remnant against a supernatural army, revanche coursing through his hands and his blade, reminding himself that these were riders who were mortals and could be taken on, with the help of Allah.

The Nubian tribesmen galloped closer, speeds increasing as the momentum of the downward slope threw them in the direction of the wind current, catching and matching their speed.

The white stallion backed off as Alex anxiously looked around for a weapon. The riders were closing in, their riding formation no longer horizontal, but semi-circular, its leader in the centre and his tribesmen cornering off any path of escape. Their war cry sent chills through her, and she saw out of the corner of her eye that Ardeth had gone stock-still, readying himself, judging from the tensed straightness of his battle stance. Without warning, he charged forward on his horse, a lone rider moving to be swallowed by the gaping mouth of the semi-circle.

She heard the first clash of metal against metal after seconds and looked up to see the leaders of their own tribes sparring furiously on their horses, the slender and engraved blade of the scimitar pitted against the thick vertical sword of the Nubians. The swordfight, perfected into a high art by the warrior's game, was epitomised in the circling of the sparring men, clashing again and again.

The tribesmen that had formed the edges of the semi-circle had surrounded her, the one on the right hauling her violently off her horse as she kicked and struggled with her booted feet, yelling for Ardeth as loud as she could. Her captor's sword was trained on her throat, pressed hard enough that she bled from the neck. He yelled at her in Arabic, as she tried to twist away from him with as much movement as she could.

Ardeth had heard her too clearly, but the warriors who fought on horseback were however, caught in their world of swordplay; he was fighting 5 men at once, slashing strongly at one, blocking the attack of another, as the leader relentlessly kept up his assault.

God help us, he remembered saying, once more that lone figure who stood in front of his young Medjai soldier, watching the dog-like creatures run with inhuman speed, multitudes upon multitudes, from crest to crest of each dune, waves that showed no sign of slowing down until they crashed upon the hard cliffs.

The momentary lapse had cost him his centre. The block he tried to make was unsteady, his scimitar sliding off the tip of the sword of the tribesman, while the sword connected securely with his right shoulder blade, nicking the flesh much less deeply if not for the thickness of his robe. A Nubian had successfully kicked his short dagger out of his left hand; it landed a few feet away from where she was struggling.

An accidental but vicious stray kick in his crotch had made him loosen his grip on her arms temporarily and she stumbled free, diving in the direction of the lone blade, grabbing the head of the dagger and without further thought, turned so that she was lay with her back in the sand and threw it with deadly accuracy at her captor.

It struck him in the middle of the forehead, but she was already running towards him as he whirled from its blow, pushing him downward into the sand, grabbing the blade from his head and sprinting free to gain distance, before spinning rather gawkishly on her heel to throw it again at the other captor with shaky hands this time, the blade finding its target deep in his belly either by accident or by choice, she honestly did not know.

She could not stop now. The rise of nausea was unmistakable as she removed the dagger slowly from the second man, not knowing if it was from the loss of blood or the reaction to the people she had just fatally injured.

Ardeth had brought down 3 men; the other 2 fought indefatigably on.

She saw the slight strain in his arms and posture, the lack of sleep from the night before weakening his reflexes and dulling his senses.

She had forgotten about the handgun that Rick O'Connell had loaned her. Running towards her white stallion, she rummaged through her sleeping pack for a solid object. Finding it, she took aim at the Nubian leader, firing off target instead with shaking hands, hitting his horse in the head, unseating him as he fell painfully down from the side, hitting the sand in an awkward angle.

Ardeth had found his advantage; two rapid moves of his wrists in a split second saw the remaining fighter fall away into oblivion. He descended from his horse, the dark avenging angel who carried death in his wings, standing over the fallen Nubian leader, placing his now red scimitar at the man's throat.

"Ardeth, no!" He dimly heard her call out.

The Nubian leader was weakening; his eyes were still glittering from the adrenaline of the attack, but pained from the broken ribs as he fell; the pride in him exceeded the potential humiliation of surrender.

He spat out something in Arabic, causing Ardeth to stiffen, and ran his own sword forcefully into his chest before Ardeth could react, gurgling, eyes defiant, before finally falling silent.

She sank to her knees in the sand then, face in hands, too numb to heave an empty stomach out, tears falling freely onto her face without sound, holding his dagger that had slain 2 men rammed into the foot of the dune, the gun flung far from her side.

Ardeth sheathed his sword, glancing around at the bodies that littered the ground, marvelling silently at her expert marksmanship that had saved both their skins.

Their conversation last night returned to him.

Are you also trained in the arms of war, in addition to being a scholar of ancient cultures, Dr. Khalan?

Such flattery. But the answer is sadly, no.

He did not doubt that she spoke the truth, and had not handled weapons as such before, but her confident throws corresponded with all that had surpassed the night before; her twirl of his scimitar and now her accuracy with his short blade defied all her claims.

_Perhaps you do not have remembrance of it._

He remembered saying this much to her, challenging her that her memory did not allow her to remember any of it yet. Perhaps this much was true; plumbing the depth of memory was not a task that one chose opportunely in one's own time, to command the way troops could be commanded. But he highly approved of her courage and her help, her deft moves had been his rear guard and the sudden elation of being alive with her filled him.

He collected the gun from where she had flung it, sinking down on his knees in front of her, gently removing her hands that shielded her face, holding her forearms tightly -and faced another assault of a different kind.

He did not let go of her this time, as he did for previous occasions, and the sight that greeted him in his mind's eye was nothing short of extraordinary.  
 __  
Sukh'chet huy Mene'wa Het  
Nu'uk Ka kat'ankh Ashet  
I will not tear myself away,  
My heart is glad beyond all measure  
  
That was what he heard, a voice that told to a beautiful Nefertiri as she lay on her bed, and then saw with the greatest amazement, himself dressed scantily, with only the lower body covered, with the same beard and flesh markings, but the hair was now close-cropped, holding a spear of sorts.

_I thank you again, Medjai. You have truly great tolerance towards Enheduana._

Ardeth heard another familiar female voice say in the ancient tongue, and saw the same couple who embraced on a deserted balcony as he did during the night he spent in the O'Connell house. Their faces were still shielded from his view, and yet he thought the woman he embraced to be Alexandra Khalan, life in its seductive banality, perhaps. The mist in which he found himself swirled around his own fading consciousness; his heartbeat increased as that same woman now leaned over him, holding a dagger - his very own, sliding it smoothly along the upper regions of his chest, blood dripping away, sporadic and too red to behold -

Alexandra was shivering violently and he let her go abruptly, breaking all contact, the control of the vision on his consciousness broken. Still reeling from the skirmish with the Nubians, he was filled with renewed dread at now possessing the knowledge that he was killed some point in time with his very own blade, by a woman whom he had first embraced, and by whom he was later betrayed.

But the lure of the physical was irresistible, drawn back to reality, he noted with significant worry that the woman whom he had gripped so tightly before, although breathing steadily, was now limp in the sand, her eyes half-open and unfocussed. Her neck was filled with blood that was slowing drying; the cut made by the Nubian had thankfully not sliced open major blood canals.

_"Sukh'chet huy Mene'wa Het.."_

She was muttering under her breath and with great shock he heard the same words on her lips repeated. He now knew that she was afflicted with the strange and repetitive visions that became clearer each time they made contact, but still wondered if they saw the same apparitions.

"I will not tear myself away," He kneeled close, bending his head and murmured against her ear, promising her that much of himself, yet afraid of touching her any further, for fear that she might not be able to master any further jolts to her emotional and physical state.

Ardeth removed his sash and pressed it gently to her neck; he did not know how long they stayed this way, with the sun now high and hot on their backs, she lying motionless on the sand, half-conscious, he, leaning close over her, comforting her with his presence, the landscape once more desolate and noiseless.

She dimly heard his voice through the haze that she fought to overcome, the overwhelming emotional overload dissipating as she forced open her eyes, and saw his vexed eyes above hers.

Ardeth pushed away from his prayer position over her, remaining on his knees as she sat up slowly, ignoring the sand that had lodged itself in her hair and the wound in her neck.

"We should move, Ardeth." She said tiredly, trying to sit up and caught sight of the tear in his robes at the shoulder. "You are bleeding too."

He gestured away her observation dismissively.

"I had meant to show you an Oasis southeast of Hamunaptra, when you joked last night that all Egypt was brown with sand. But it is now a necessity." He studied her dusty face keenly, picking out the reddish-gold strands of her ebony hair that were highlighted more fiercely in the glare of the sun, and frowned over the cut in her neck that was in danger of an infection.

"Strange how a city of the dead is built near to a life source," She smiled weakly.

Ardeth seemed to be fighting a battle within himself, the need to help his injured companion warring with but triumphing over the worry that their touch might result in less than pleasant repercussions.

Calling the horses to them, he transferred their sleeping packs and their belongings onto the white stallion, and hoisted her up his own horse, ignoring the brief flashes that accompanied this movement, seeing doubly through gritted teeth, living two lifetimes in a space of a heartbeat.

"What is this I see, Ardeth? Am I hallucinating?" She asked in confusion, her hands gripping the front of his saddle, as she made weak motions to wave away the queer visions that now came frequently with each touch they shared. He swung himself behind her, his injured right arm stretched past her, grasping the reins of the horse, urging it into a smooth gallop, his left hand controlling the reins of her white stallion, demanding it to match the pace he had set.

"Bear with it for a moment longer, Alexandra. We will sort things out when we reach the oasis." He said quietly behind her now, her full name rolling off his tongue the way streams glide effortlessly off rounded rocks; conscious that it was the first time he was addressing her intimately, wanting himself to mean so much more to her than what he meant to her now.

She had discerned it immediately as the momentum of the gallops threw her forward; so attuned were her ears to hearing her formal salutation fall from his lips that she had struggled for breath as he whispered her name, unprepared for the helpless desire that formed and pooled in her, held a willing captive by his voice. He had been so formal with her, addressing her as nothing more than the salutation that museum officials called her; she now felt overcome not by his remarkable show of might against the Nubians, but by the uncharacteristic tenderness he showed her.

They rode hard and fast, the scourging wind that whipped through their hair sending swirls and eddies of sand that bit their faces, physical demons that added on to the flashes of remembrance that passed in the mind's eye. Two separate existences had come alive, giving warning that they were yet about to culminate explosively.

The present and the past were brought to broil, indescribably dependent on each other; she saw herself dressed oddly, holding a knife to another man's belly, saw herself running without looking back from the marshes, and then running with Evy, who was dressed similarly, the lack of chronological order telling her of the large degree of her own ignorance.

The lush greenery that materialised at the edge of the desert was more than a welcome sight; they had lost sense of time, the only indication that it was nearing the end of the day was the long cast of shadows of the bountiful leaves on their bodies as they slowed at the entrance, bringing the horses to a trot. Ardeth let their thirst guide them to the nearest pool of water that fell from large upper crevices of hard rock, before bringing both of them down onto the dampish grass, collapsing in front of the same pond surrounded by craggy rock, that promised to heal their dehydrated and wounded states.


	18. Confessions

Until when, oh lady, Shall the ungodly enemy ravage thy land?  
In thy queen city, Erech, Destruction is complete.  
In Eulbar, thy temple, Blood has flowed as water.  
O'er all thy lands the foe has poured out flame;  
It hangs over them like smoke.

Oh lady, it is hard for me  
To bend my neck to the yoke of misfortune!  
Oh lady, thou hast let me suffer,  
Thou hast plunged me in sorrow!  
The mighty evil foe Broke me as a reed;  
I know not what to resolve;  
I trust not in myself.

Like a thicket of waving reeds  
I moan low, day and night.  
I bow my head before thee!  
I am thy servant!  
-Ancient Babylonian Poem, written about the destruction of Erech, to the goddess Nana

The chants were still strongly sung in the palace, although the mourns had faded away the moment the heavy palace doors closed. Ramses, devastation in his being, had left with his high priests, boarding the barge that sailed for the Western coast, leaving the lesser of the court to relish the feast laid before them.  
 _  
The hair of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the hair of Nu.  
The face of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the face of Ra.  
The eyes of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the eyes of Hathor.  
The ears of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the ears of Up-uatu.  
The lips of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the lips of Anpu.  
_  
The deification of bodily members recited aloud; where the boy had been human for a few cycles, he now lived forever in the realm of the gods. The words were her temporary companions to her own thoughts, mingling with the snatches of conversation that she heard from various sides of the palace.

Egypt faces a new dawn, they said, a dawn of a different kind, where there will be no more wailing in the land.

Enheduana-Rai flushed as she meandered her way through the corridors; the dizzying cloud that her head was in not quite dispersing under the still omnipotent gloom of death.

The Viceroy Sahure is preparing the chariots for the Pharaoh, she heard the idle chatter of the servants.

Their talk was not to be dismissed, she had learnt in the short time she had spent in the palace. With a lowered head and an indifferent countenance she had posed no threat to anyone -idle talk that dripped from the mouths of the courtiers as they paraded past her, had no reason to be contained. Dressed in colours of merriment, the blues, reds, greens and golds of their wealth, the latest political talk had resumed.

Her ascent towards her chambers was of the longer route, but walls were hollow, snippets of conversation easily picked out.

It has been many moon cycles since the slaves left with their leader.

Aretas had left her overwhelmed, the unfamiliar emotion coursed through her chest and throat rapidly, unabating, for the very knowledge that she was going to meet him again.

The conspiratorial voices, belonging to faceless ones, continued as she ascended slowly, clutching her sullied gown and her untidy hair, wavy from the fingers that were run through it numerously, palms clenched tightly as she tried to control her inhalations.

Egyptian spies report that they have now reached the far southeast of Iunu, where they meet the sea. The Hebrew slaves under their enigmatic leader, had left their great land in tatters.

In spite of Egypt's dire situation, she found that all that she could think of was him. The sight of his liquid eyes, large, unyielding and unrepentant before they closed just as his mouth had closed over hers; she was unable to account for the great feebleness she found in her limbs, as if a thousand spring flowers had bloomed within.

Palace gossip was rife and bountiful; one just needed to know where to stoop and listen.

 _Ramses is filled with a new vengeance, his anger cultivated out of proportion; I heard that he had left his command of Egypt into the hands of his Uncle, the viceroy,_ a governor of the inner court had said.

The turmoil of the Egyptian court and its political state was not real to her, not yet; she who stumbled along before that particular Medjai had become his prey and in his untamed pursuit lay an intimate harmony that she had glimpsed, with his breath warm on her cheek, searing and frightening.

_He rides tomorrow; I saw the thousands that have left their families, who now stay with their horses in the holding site beyond the temple. Sahure will rule indeed._

His fingers had held her arms tightly, then had become delicate as they smoothed her hair, trailing down her cheeks, urgent explorers of her skin, all her reality moulding itself to aphrodisiac, an embroidery of two strong desires.

_The Viceroy, tell me, if he had ever before ruled in Ramses' stead?_

She was reaching the top of the stairway, the path to her chambers nearly deserted but for two others who hastily shoved past her in their eagerness to plunge into the feast and festivity.

_Ramses leads Egypt to victory tomorrow, Sahure maintains the empire that Ramses has built._

The concupiscence she and Aretas had both displayed was unmistakable, she recalled, growing amorousness that would have had them both reclining in the marshes had she not pulled back - or was it he who had restrained himself?

_Glory to Egypt, I say, the gods themselves ride out with Pharaoh. Yuya, deified now, blesses his own father as he seeks vengeance against the Hebrews. Sahure's loyalty to Ramses and Egypt serves him well._

She was Ramses' concubine. He, Pharaoh's guard. Should they be caught, they faced undeniable death at the Pharoah's hand, by his prized sword. Nerfertiri had disappeared when she had recovered the strength of her legs; she suspected that Djosyn and Aretas had engineered her exile, in the months where the Medjai had rotated their guards. But could she hope for a twist of fate like Nefertiri's, where Djosyn still kept the knowledge of her being alive?

The distant roar of voices made her turn her head in its direction. It was time.

"Bring me milk and figs," she commanded the servants who fussed with her appearance.

They bowed and obeyed, serving her a generous amount of a large plate. She ate and drank slowly as they resumed their laborious task of ornamentation, knowing that she would not be able to stomach the lavish but greasy cuisine that would be served.

Something was to happen tonight, she knew intuitively, if she did not collapse of exhaustion first.

Washed and dressed in the finest garments that Egypt could offer its royalty. Gold that was lavished with no restrained. Enheduana-Rai sat unmoving as the servants lined her eyes, perfuming her upper body with marjoram and myrrh, their touch light and seasoned from the countless of women they had anointed before her, the movement down her calves sparking the involuntary constriction of the muscles as she imagined those hands belonging to the one who had unflinchingly claimed her mouth earlier.

How could she face him again, with her insecurities and the reluctant tight-lippedness that she carried about her? How was he ever willing to make love to a woman who carried herself with the impenetrability of a desert rock, not discovering that she was as thin as the fine Egyptian linen inside? It passed her comprehension - should anyone, let alone him, conceivably see through something this way and still not be filled with both revulsion and pity for the strangled creature and bitter creature she had become.

The servants that surrounded her had quietly slipped away; she got up with a sigh, and with a practised deliberation descended an alternate stairway that would bring her into the hall of festivities, announcing her arrival not with fanfare, but with regal silence that had so become her.

Only a couple of heads had turned to look - she was not as striking and athletic in form as Nefertiri had been, a less than flawless physical self copiously made up for in her skills as a healer and fighter, skills that her native land had placed as second above exteriority.

The purpose of the rounds she made around the hall of festivities was to make certain that they caught a glimpse of her; the crowds pregnant and rife with the talk of Ramses' campaign down Iutu, on the trail of the Hebrews. But there was only someone she now looked out for.

His presence still eluded her after several turns of the head, until the incredible force of his gaze forced her to re-look left from where she stood, meeting intensity itself when she caught sight of him, standing at the far right pillar, mere footsteps away from Djosyn.

Aretas moved over to Djosyn and spoke in low tones, the latter nodding imperceptibly. He turned then, and quietly made his winding way around lesser-known corridors; she was wont to follow him, knowing that he would not have it another way.

The balconies of the palaces were inordinately numerous; the one that Aretas' trail brought her to was empty and quiet, not knowing what to anticipate for the remainder of the night. She found herself alone, his trail abruptly vanishing like the smoke of the incense burnt for Yuya, swiftly turning around at a noise.

Everything stilled as he approached, her breath, her heart, and the earth had stopped moving under the rule of the gods, all consumed under the two dark orbs that were his eyes trained on her.

"Rai," was his whisper as he stopped close to her, gently taking her hand in his, afraid as much as she was, uncertain about the course of the night.

The darkness of the Egyptian night had constructed, shaped and framed him so magnificently, revealing all that she needed to see. She looked down at their joined hands, feeling more trepidation than heady excitement, opting to distance herself, even for a moment, a regaining of an apparent normalcy.

"Pharaoh rides tomorrow," she told him, head lowered, eyes fixed on her hand held in his, which he obstinately refused to relinquish.

"Need you tell me this, Rai?" He asked, a small smile claiming his mouth. "I am after all, Pharaoh's guard; half the Medjai will join his campaign as he rides towards the gulf tomorrow."

A sudden fear clutched her; perhaps Aretas was going away too; a loss that would mean a lot more to her than she would care to admit.

"I am a warrior-scribe, as Djosyn is," he seemed to be able to read her thoughts. "My duty to Pharaoh is balanced by a duty to the Medjai. Djosyn, I and a few others are to record this history for both Egypt and the Medjai annals."

It was best to speak before her courage left her.

"You do not know how glad you have made me." She kept her eyes at their joined hands, feeling the last vestiges of her self-control flee before the consuming fire that was him, leaving only passion and wantonness that would glow gold in fire.

He tilted her chin upwards, studying her shifting eyes, lightly placing a chaste kiss on her forehead, telling her with actions instead of words his fulfilment in hearing her speak those words.

"I will tell you now, what you have wished to know," she murmured against his face, turning away from him to lean her upper body on the balcony bars to stare out at the Egyptian night.

"Aram was one of Ramses' conquests, in the sixth year of his reign," she began, feeling a dulled pain resurfacing, a pain that never went away.

"It was where I grew up. I lived at its outskirts, near the mountains." Her sentences were clipped, short as she swallowed hard, the recollection difficult on her head.

It was as if he understood, the silence that came from him was not a frigid one, neither was it cold and distancing, instead it had become comforting and calming, and she favoured him for his lack of haste in clumsily apologising for her suffering with incomplete knowledge as many were wont to do.

The revellers and their noise grew more distant as she retreated deeper into uncontrolled memory, the chronicle of actions that dissolved and translated into a myriad of feelings.

"Aram is a land bountiful in many ways; I learnt the arts of healing and warring techniques from an early age -most women were required to and I am no different, she paused, taking in the rapidly cooling air that the desert winds bestowed upon those who lingered at the balcony. My family was large; I had many sisters and brothers from my father's many wives. There was nothing special that was planned for me."

"And one day Ramses' army swept through Aram. He sacked and plundered the town and villages, killing many; some women were forcibly captured to be slaves of the royal court; my family pleaded for their lives in return for mine."

It was getting emotionally strenuous to continue, battling demons in the face of another was so much harder if she could not face it alone.

"Stop, do not continue if you cannot," Aretas finally said, placing three fingers on her lips.

"But I must."

She tore her head away from him, wondering briefly if he was hurt by that partial rejection, but not knowing if there was any other way. The floodgates were loose; the roar that emerged was inescapable.

"Ramses had agreed, and I was brought along with these women to Egypt. The people of Aram had thought that Ramses had been satisfied, not knowing that these women were in no way sufficient treasure that he wanted. They thought they were safe, my family had thought the sacrifice of one life would protect theirs."

"A shrewd Pharaoh knows his true prize," he murmured against her, aching to hold her, yet knowing that the release of the flood of hatred that had inundated her for so long was crucial.

"But he spared no one," her eyes were full of desolation and misery. "No one! The chariots rode away with me and other women; they made us watch as they razed the villages and the plentiful vegetation of mountains in the north."

It was indeed ironic that she was prized much more in Egypt as a concubine than she had been in her native land; nonetheless it was their betrayal of her that had caused enough bitterness to turn a heart black.

"There was no bravery in me at all, as the chariots neared Egypt. The women, who were skilled in the arms of war and healing would have been great possessions of Egypt, but they chose to die bravely by their own hands before we entered Thebes. Only I, was the only one left, with nothing but cowardice, afraid to put her own dagger to her throat, lived. What you see before you Aretas, is no woman who has done anyone justice, she finally said, the force of the torrent dying, leaving an exhaustion that was always its aftermath."

"Your pain, I wish to take away, even if only for tonight," he announced softly to her, bringing an arm around her shoulders at long last. "You have not become so bitter as to ignore the pain of Nefertiri, even though you have known far worse pain, and not too cowardly as to place the tip of your blade against me when I threatened you those moon cycles ago."

She remained dry-eyed, stilling in his arms. Was he saying this with earnestness, and not simply to appease her?

"Take heart, Enheduana-Rai," he smiled at her, forcing her to look at him, "you are much admired by someone, grown in his esteem far more than when he had first misunderstood you."

Looking into those fierce, glittering eyes of his, she faced her own greatest fear - who was this man, whose gentle touch and intensity of gaze were going to be her undoing? It was the crisis of an inner indisposition, earlier attacks of it could hardly be founded upon; they were merely absurd and ephemeral stirrings of pleasure and of the senses; the vertigo that significantly made itself present when he approached was not one that she could understand in the normal moments of life.

"What are you telling me, Medjai?" She asked slowly. "Tell me again."

He repeated all that he had said, this time slowly, letting his words run down her as he shifted his face in the crook of her neck and ran his hands up her arms, positioning himself as a lover would.

"What is this Medjai, that you behold me as something more than a possession?" She asked then, perplexed, unconsciously seeking his assurance, eyes undimmed by the flickering firelight.

"A possession has no life of sorts," he quipped, wanting to draw a smile to her face, wanting the breathtaking sight to fill his vision once more. "But you stand here in front of me, a miracle of the gods that you have not killed yourself, such that you may surely find yourself once more. Smile for me, Rai; your loveliness takes my breath away."

She could not quite conjure up merriment in the wake of what she had just told him, could not quite smile for him as yet, tracing her fingers instead over his face, his beard and lips, before they rested on his bare torso.

"What would you do with me now, Medjai?" She inquired, vulnerable now, the soul bared.

"To bring you to my bed, Rai," he told her directly, unflinchingly. "To show you that my actions speak more than what my words may tell you. But I know that you are fatigued from the lack of rest and repose and I will not hold you back anymore."

He stepped away from her, wanting to lead the way back to her chambers.

"You truly want me? Even when I am Pharaoh's concubine?" She voiced the question that he feared she might ask.

"Rai," he started carefully, "knowing that you belong to Pharaoh does not diminish any desire for you, not because you are forbidden, just as Nefertiri was forbidden, but one never chooses where one can place his feelings," he finished hoarsely. "I can only thank the gods if you share the same sentiments." 

They now held each other's faces in their hands, fitting themselves tightly to each other, shielded from view simply because the majority of Egypt mourned and the minority revelled elsewhere, the land that was not wrapped in sleep, but in the extreme spectrums of emotions.

"You never know what tomorrow holds, Aretas. Maybe I am asking that of you. The earth that is already so old does not need our help, and we drown all hours tonight, for as long as we are permitted."

Aretas' breath caught in his throat - was she saying what he interpreted it to be?

"I am unsure of what you say, Rai," he ventured honestly; he was a man who did not know still, if he would reconcile himself to his lot easily.

"You did not hear me?" Her brows were now raised playfully at him.

A small laugh escaped her then, the happier emotion wafting by her the first time that night, as she shook her head lightly at his denseness.

"I was only trying to say it less...directly," as she took a deep breath. "You are allowed in my bed, Medjai, more so than Pharoah is, if you did not hear me properly before. I want you there and I am not too tired to hold you in my arms. Make it real then, you do not know how much you have made me want you."

He received the answer that he had so urgently sought; the madness that was consuming him not of the head, but of the heart, and with trembling hands touched the side of her face softly, as though seeking her wordless permission to continue. 

The tremble of his hands moved her deeply, cherishing the newfound knowledge that this man who now stood before her was no violator of emotions. She wanted him to hold her forever, caught in this moment in time suspended, always wanted to see his familiar face looking down on her, promising a life that was free of terror and loss.

The torture in her face struggled and lost against triumph, and with the playfulness of new lovers, they stole down the stairs, passing eternally smiling life-size statues of Ma'at, of Bastet, seeing the vibrant colour of their outer paints fading in the orange hue of the firelight.


	19. Entanglements

I persist in turning from her, though much against my will;  
And when she is absent, I avoid listening  
To those who saw her or heard from her.  
Love for her came to me before I knew what love was,  
And it found a lasting abode in a heart till then empty.  
\- Yazid lbn at-Tathriya

He stirred slightly, opening his eyes slowly, his eyes absorbing his small living quarters that was typically strewn with mats and cushions, still darkened. The only difference it made was the woman who lay peacefully in in slumber still, in his arms.

A passionate woman she was, he smiled briefly; there was no further need for confirmation. The uncertainty of the past and coming months had lain far away from them as glory was personified the night before, its relentless vortex was nothing less than the promise of rapture and bliss, delivering all that it claimed to be.

Aretas, she had cried out many times the night before as his lips traced paths down her form, his unfulfilled hunger taking its pleasure from another's flesh, filling, taking, giving, satiating until the bliss that ensued was an overpaid reward, satisfying two instead. 

She had gasped her appreciation and his name; he had been too drunk with her to answer in speech and coherence, choosing in its place to silence her with his touch.

It will bring so much remembrance, of their first night together, he thought, stroking her bare arms slowly, rousing her gently.

She stirred, turned slowly to face him, eyes lighting up in recognition and remembrance at his proximity to her, flushing momentarily as he tilted her chin up with a finger. How could she forget the dryness in her mouth as his own tore away from hers, the primal pounding that rose to her throat each time he returned to claim her lips?

"I apologise for not letting you get enough rest, Rai," he murmured against her softly, a grin forming at the corners of his mouth.

"I am not protesting", she replied sleepily, smiling at him. 

"You have not slept enough," he said to her firmly.

"Did I tear you away from your duty last night?" She dismissed his concern, turning the question on him.

"It was a distraction that I would willingly die for again," he told her, their faces close, enraptured by each other's gaze, brushing away the illicitness of their affair. 

"This is the morning after, Aretas, things are not as mysterious as the night would have it. Without the shield and concealment of darkness, we see each other with the clarity of a worker who works under strong sunlight. But I will never the way we drew comfort from each other last night."

"You fascinate me, Enheduana-Rai", he told her after a pause, threading his fingers through hers, dropping his gaze from hers. "How often is it that a woman unmans me?"

She kept her lips sealed for a while, questioning herself if she had indeed done herself a grievous wrong in wantonly letting a man of a foreign tongue and land share her bed, this dark, handsome man who was still very much a stranger to her. That she had failed at keeping him from arm's length was an error on her part, that the failure lay with her alone and not with him.

"I do not know if we have done one another justice last night," she told him baldly. I still belong to the Pharoah.

"I am not careless with women," he finally answered her quietly, after a long, deliberate pause. "Least of all, you. It was my pleasure in watching you also delight in what we shared. My betrothed was lost to illness and I have been alone since."

Enheduana-Rai flushed at his words; he seemed to know how to respond to her resistant jibes, with words that were not laced with pure flattery but with sincerity. She found that she had no words in response. 

"I will do all that you ask of me, even if you choose to leave now," he told her then. But do not ask me why.

They were both afraid to speak of love, the emotion that still remained shrouded to them in flimsy veils, reminders of unhappy pasts and unfulfilled desires, skeptical that love should arise after one night, knowing instinctively that if it should arise, pain that equalled it would most certainly also abound.

Love will never be love until there is vulnerability, she thought, unwilling to speak further, disentangling herself from the sheets, from him, dressing hastily.

A sudden intrusion made their heads snap around, and a masculine voice filled the sudden silence. 

"Aretas, it is time. I will meet you where we normally gather."

Djosyn stood at the doorway, his expression veiled, concealing any surprise that he might have felt upon seeing Enheduana-Rai in the proximity of his friend, nodding his head toward her in greeting.

Aretas affirmed his response wordlessly, as Djosyn turned and left. He dressed hastily as she had done before him, before moving to stand in front of her where she now stood, at the foot of his cot.

"You are more than what one can hold in the palm of a hand, Rai," he leaned in then, whispering against her face before pulling back and stepping away.

She felt no hesitation this time as she stretched out her own hand to stop him from completely moving away from her, already bereft of the loss.

"Come to me again, Medjai. I find that your arms shield all that is undesirable," she told him finally.

He paused at her words, nodded and left.

His footsteps were songs and rhythms found in the light taps across the grounds, music unto the ears even of strangers, the innate acappella that sang within him externalising itself, even though the task that lay before him was arduous and critical. It only transpired that he now breathed breaths of vigour, energy personified.

The small group of warrior-scribes had gathered, Aretas noticed, around their leader Djosyn, patiently awaiting his presence, their faces highlighted in parts by the early morning light that filled oddly-shaped ventilation holes, distorting their fullness.

"Aretas," one of them grinned, "you slept very well I gather?"

Khamet, the other scribe with whom he frequently broke bread with, was a formidable ally in war but also a formidable foe to defeat in his ready wit and sharpness.

"You do not to care for subtleties this morning," Aretas shot back mock-fiercely.

Khamet guffawed.

"I had only thrown a wild guess. And you fell into my trap completely. If you were a prisoner of war, you will fall freely into the Underworld."

"Aretas makes yet another conquest?" Another mocked.

"A woman of the night had satisfied him!"

He felt a smile creep onto his face despite their cheerful insinuations, muttering halfhearted curses under his breath at their crude jibes, knowing that the bond they shared as the elusive and few warrior-scribes; their taunts were never meant to scald, not when their loyalty to each other outweighed petty differences.

"No, I did not sleep at all," he shot back with both brows raised, "so think what you want you want to think for yourselves."

Djosyn had been grinning silently at their jibes, but stood up when Aretas made their gathering complete. The mirth dissipated almost immediately, the brevity of the situation taking the upper hand in pressing down the backs of these warriors once again as they fell silent, leaving them bereft of the lighter emotions.

"You know why we meet today," he started out grimly. "The scrolls and papyrus are yours", he motioned with a slight arc of his hand. "And possibly the course of the whole future lie in your hands. Do the Medjai proud. The assignment of the scrolls and the various occurrences have already been done. Work diligently, courageously, with all your soul, such that you also leave your legacy when you finish."

They dispersed then, the brief but secret meeting broken up as quickly as possible. Creative indolence took no space in their determination, deeply penetrating as they wordlessly walked out of their undersized meeting site, perhaps feeling superhuman at the moment they surrendered themselves to the larger claim of history and the existence of the Medjai.

But before Aretas stepped out of the doorway, a hand on his shoulder halted his progress. He was greeted by a look on Djosyn's face he had never seen before - that of understanding, bewilderment, surprise and shock found abundantly together.

"Truth of the gods, Djosyn, I wonder if there was any honour in my actions last night. How is one to take pleasure in the knowledge that he stole a taste from the forbidden?"

"The forbidden beckons does it not, my brother? To be able to taste it increases its sweetness manifold. We all claw for the forbidden, if this is a truth that will comfort you."

"I've lost my honour, Djosyn. I covet a prized possession of the Pharaoh, yet I told her bravely, perhaps even falsely that I am not careless with women."

"Indeed you are not, I say of you. We saw how your beloved had been taken from you too soon. But for me," the other sighed, "I can also make no excuse for mine, Aretas," Djosyn said quietly. "You know that I love Nefertiri with all that I am; I am only thankful that you have chosen not to judge me on my honour when you saw me with her. And now I return that favour and blessing. Enheduana-Rai is safer with you than she is with Ramses or Sahure."

"There is no love in this, Djosyn, only the rise and fall of fickle emotions and carnal senses," he said bitterly. "I admire her as a woman, and though she believes otherwise, I still question myself harshly if I am also using her as the king had. This woman has been used enough."

"Perhaps you will learn to love her, Aretas. Or you may find her to simply be one of the women whom you have been with before. But I seem to see that you are already threading your way through the papyrus fields of love poetry," Djosyn answered dryly.

"Then why is guilt creeping upon me now? We are not people only of the sword and of hardness, Djosyn. Such reality is both crushing and welcoming at once. I do not know what to do ."

They stood facing each other, each having a hand on the other's shoulder in support, their heights nearly identical, faces mirroring similar emotions leaving only their external colourings different. The fair-haired and the dark-haired warriors, brothers in spirit, with bond greater than the bond of blood, all too well acquainted now with the frailty of human strength.

"It is the present in which we now live and breathe. I live in it, I live for it. With my woman, who does not seem to regret all that has transpired between us. And that is all I am able to tell you."

"You speak great truths when you wish to, Djosyn," he sighed. "Have I not seen with my own eyes how dangerous forbidden trysts are?"

"We all possess certain virtues which are never made known to us ourselves, unless we are told," Djosyn laughed then, as they proceeded to commit themselves fully to the task of recording Egypt's sudden tumultuous landscape and politics, racing against time and uncertainty.

I will come back to you, as long as you have a need of me, he wanted to promise her again the very same night they took each other with unsatiated hunger. He had tried to show it to her wordlessly, assuring her with his mouth and strong embrace, yet not knowing if she heard him.

"Do you, Medjai? Will you now make promises to me that you will find later very difficult to keep?" She had asked him then, with clarity in her eyes, wanting no more than an honest reply.

He kissed her again, mouth hot on her skin, delaying his reply to her.

But it was she who pulled away hesitantly, her face on his cheek.

"I am stronger than you think, Aretas. One must be, to survive in a viper's court. If you wish to tell me that nothing further will proceed between us, I am able to understand. I am the Pharaoh's concubine," there was masked bitterness behind the calm voice that said those words. "Pain is never easy to endure, but we will all live through it numerously in our lifetimes."

"You lie, Rai." He had said to her with a hooded expression, gauging her response.

"Why would I?," she had asked quietly." Do you not believe me when I tell you that pain hardens one? Do you not believe me when I tell you that pain is very real, to see your own people reject and betray you before an alien king? I will not say more. I will not repeat what you have heard so clearly."

"The life of a Medjai is never certain, Enheduana-Rai. I beg your forgiveness if you had expected any more of me than what I knew I had to give," He was troubled at what she said, not knowing if the brave front that she wore before him now was truly real.

She stiffened, pulling herself away from him, but not before he caught her wrist.

"Rai, you must hear all that I say," he bit his lip rather anxiously, the grip on her wrist tightening. "I have great need of you that I cannot understand. All the time I fear that you will slip away from me, or something will inevitably pull you away, and in my great need to make you a constant around me, I may have driven you even further. I do not know what to tell you that will make you realise your own worth; surely you know that you are of great value because you are a woman of the king."

She turned around to face him, wrist still in his hand, but it did not feel like the tyrannical grip of those who attempted to enslave her; its hardness on her wrist spoke of security and protection.

"But do you know that you exquisite? How you far exceed the worth that people place on you, because I have known you and you have known me."

"We cannot foretell the future, Aretas," she had begun with frustration. "The King is gone, driven to madness by the death of his boy and his anger with the Hebrews blinds him. The Viceroy, he might summon the women of the court for his own use. I am powerless against him. Are you willing to hear what my body can also offer to him?"

It pained him exceedingly, to hear such truth fall from her, making him want to yell with the outrage and the injustice of misplaced and forbidden passion, the unsympathetic gods that had not allowed a smooth communion with the woman he wanted badly, only favouring those in positions of power by pelting them with gifts they did not even know the complete worth of.

"I want to say that you belong to me now, Rai. But I will not do so," he told her firmly, closing his eyes at the sharp reality that had corned him with its deadly spear. "You are your own, forever, and always, even though the palace decrees that you are the King's, until the day you decide that you belong to someone."

It was possibly the greatest gift that someone could have given her. 

"I know, Aretas," she said, the calm mask threatening to break as it faltered. "We are forbidden to continue. But you have shown me paradise in this uncertainty, of which I will now always thirst for."

He felt like a broken man at the finality of words, knowing that she was lost to him; their togetherness was not to last.

"But the gods help me, I cannot tear myself away," she confessed in a small voice, fisting both her hands tightly, wanting to wail and rant. "I cannot tear myself away!"

"I will not," he whispered to her fiercely then, "I will not tear myself away, no matter what the gods decree." Burying his hands in her hair, the renewed desperation for each other resurfaced, hands that explored everywhere could not get enough of each other, lips that ate each other could not get bruised and swollen enough, and kisses that were spent on each other were not lavished enough to last the night, yet the moans of pleasure that they extracted from each other carried yet too much anguish to belong to satisfied lovers.


	20. The Oasis Fiasco

The springtime of Lovers has come,  
That this dust bowl may become a garden;  
The proclamation of heaven has come,  
That the bird of the soul may rise in flight.  
The sea becomes full of pearls,  
The salt marsh becomes sweet as kauthar,  
The stone becomes a ruby from the mine,  
The body becomes wholly soul.  
-Jalaluddin Rumi

The tranquillity that the shade and the placid pond provided was unfortunately not enough to soothe both minds that were frayed from churning out fractured memories mingling with the constitution of the present day reality.

They sat beside each other on the craggy rock, cupping liberal handfuls of water that were splashed hard at wearied faces and thirsty lips, washing the dust of the earlier encounter off.

Ardeth now washed the wound in his shoulder gently, shrugging off his outer robe to reveal equally dark shirt and pants. Alex Khalan had not glanced at him, preoccupied with wiping her own wound with his sash that she had dipped in the cool water.

"We are not spending all of our time here," he announced to her.

"Why not?" She felt unjustly robbed of a paradise that she had been given for a few moments to enjoy and now this incomprehensible man told her otherwise.

He must have seen her facial expression that revealed the look of a child who had its favourite toy taken away from her, chuckling quietly.

"This is only the opening of the oasis; it is a pleasant sight, do you not agree? Very refreshing for any visitor who takes shelter under its leaves and beckoning water. But what is to come deeper in is the best it offers." He smiled.

"Oh," Came her sigh of relief; trusting that he made a good estimation of the landscape as they got up tiredly and led the horses deeper into the barely trodden trail.

"I am not able to remember a lot of things that I have studied," he confessed as they walked. "It has never been this way before; the memory will only reveal itself when it wishes to. Until then, I beg Allah that it will save me in urgent times."

She knew that he referred to the strange workings that were upon them; his memory lapse, and perhaps the visions they had shared. But they had to talk about it.

"Ardeth, this is what I saw," she said seriously, eyes fixed on the greenery that was before them, dipping her head to avoid the occasional protrusion of large branches, afraid to see his face. "Fragmentary flashes. Of another time, perhaps ancient Egypt itself. Sometimes blurred, but getting clearer should more contact be made, I think. I see mostly...myself actually, perhaps at a costume party, well, dressed in the ancient Egyptian fashion, and then I was held a knife to someone's stomach, and then I ran from a marshland, a couple hugging each other and then Evy who was dressed like me." Her shoulders slumped defeatedly and she cringed. How much more ridiculous could this sound? 

Ardeth ran his hands through his hair, closing his eyes in a brief space of a moment before replying. Thoughts were flowing out of him, without end, but he wanted to give them a voice before they died unborn.

"Then we see differently," he said, troubled. "It disturbs me very much, Alexandra, that something is at work here."

There it was again, her name that his voice gave a sublime shape to. It gave her hope; perhaps she wasn't the only delusional being here? 

"Tell me what you see Ardeth."

"I see myself killed." He said gravely.

"What? But I only wanted -"

He laughed grimly then.

"I am sorry for anticipating what you were not asking. That was always the end for what I saw. Blood, a knife which I become more certain with each passing day that belongs to me, and sometimes Rick and Evy O'Connell, and me as well, dressed for Egypt of the Pharaohs. The blood that covers my entire sight signals the end of the vision, but not before I see a woman holding my knife against me."

"So the timeline is the same, I gather, we just see different aspects of ourselves?" She asked dryly. "Such madness."

The horses had stopped their trot at the edge of a slight precipice; concealed by jagged rocks at the side and downward sloping trees was a clearer, deeper pool that sparkled weakly under the glinting sunlight reflected from the leaves, fed continuously by a main waterfall, flanked by two other minature ones. At the far edge of the pool the rocks opened up into a small brook, carrying the water downstream with quiet rippling noises.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," He gestured grandly to the sight below them. "I can only be proud of the good that Egypt offers, at least in the modern day. This, madam," he pointed and waved his arms expansively, "is created for man's pleasure."

It certainly was beautiful; she was not able to critically examine it with an artist's eye, but the appreciation of it ran as deep as it would for one who had been starved of life's most basic needs.

She nodded; no words were needed.

"We rest here. Until we are fit enough to leave for Hamunaptra," he told her firmly.

She nodded again, this time more vigorously than the first, a slight touch of annoyance that gave way to grudging concurrence. The water's edge was more than tempting; all that what she wanted to do was to position her sullied self under its unadulterated flow, that it may once again present her physically and mentally immaculate.

"What are you waiting for?" Ardeth drawled.

"I will be tending to the horses from here. Be assured that you are out of my line of sight. I believe I am far too old for the antics of young boys. Just make sure you do not stay in there too long. Come back up before it turns completely dark," he added wryly.

Alex stared at him strangely for a while, before snatching up her small pack and making her way down the modest precipice. It was tempting to bask in the swirling eddies of the water for much longer than she had decided to, but Ardeth had not yet cleaned the shoulder wound; the lengthier her bath was, the more prolonged his wait for his would be.

She climbed up the slope slowly, relishing feel of spotlessness.

"Your turn, Ardeth."

"Only seventeen minutes?" He raised his brows questioningly.

"Yes," was all that she said, refusing to rise to his bait. "You need to clean your wound."

He shook his head.

"It is not a large wound. The horses are there," he nodded his head in their direction. "I will not be long. And after this, we are going to talk." He made his way down the same path that she had trodden, swinging his bag over his shoulder.

Alex sat idly for a while, watching the horses walk free, wondering why Medjai never tied their horses. Had they tamed all their horses as people did their dogs? 

She shook her head. Or simply, she was thinking too much. Ardeth was most probably getting old and careless, just as he had said, she concluded.

Taking the reins, she carefully tied the black stallion to the nearest tree that stood away from the edge of the precipice, lingering indulgently over the number and the method of knotting the reins -not too tight, not too loose either, she thought idly.

But a sudden gunshot that sounded like it was within range of her and Ardeth had frightened the horses that were only partially restrained; her white horse had jolted abruptly, the black stallion broke free of her slack grip on its reins, taking off after its counterpart in a direction yet unknown to them.

She swore, rooted to the spot for a few seconds, stunned and turned in the direction of the pool, panic in her mind and limbs.

"Ardeth!" Alex hollered. "The horses!"

But he had also heard the gunshot all too clearly and with reflexes that remain quick despite his injury and exhaustion, grabbed what he could of his scattered clothes, cursing himself for his carelessness. He was already running towards her at her shout, up the slight slope, clutching nothing but his heavy, black outer robe down the front of his body, giving her a glance of heavily muscled thighs and an exquisitely sculpted upper body that she would have taken multiple looks at if not for the runaway horses.

Damnation!

She cursed under her breath again, but this time, her expletives were not directed towards the horses, but at herself for her own reaction to a man who simply wasn't wearing enough. If he had noticed her staring at him, he made no mention of it.

The curses that she had said were repeated this time in a male voice, only louder, in Arabic and a few other languages that she had not recognised, as he approached her side, not slowing in his charge towards the horses.

"Woman," he growled, "What are you waiting for? Run! They are our only transport!"

She obeyed mutely, feeling somewhat scandalised at the near naked man running frantically by her side after the equally frantic horses, trying her hardest not to peek at the side where he struggled to pull his robe over his head as he kept up with her.

A few muffled curses in Arabic were let out again through the outer robe as he pulled the offending item over his neck and shoulders.

Ardeth was, unfortunately, doing an admirable job in getting dressed very fast as they sprinted.

"You said there would be no one around for miles! What was that gunshot?" She gasped out, knowing that she was already tiring, her hands at her sides, trying to pinch away the burgeoning pain.

"Hunters, maybe," he bit back at her through gritted teeth; in truth, he did not know too. "Horus, my falcon died this way."

He did not seem to be weakening. Yet. 

The robe, to her outraged, scandalised delight, was barely hiding anything; it still hung limply down his wet calves and thighs, his muscles coated with a sheen that the mixture of the remnant water droplets and perspiration provided. It flapped as he ran alongside her barefoot, tantalising those who even prided themselves on their unwavering strength and dogged self-control.

He was not overtly bulky, she thought, yet the ruggedness that was found in the hard planes and ridges of his body, too well defined for words, proclaimed him too devastatingly masculine to resist, that the difficulty she had in breathing did not completely stem from the exertion of running.

The run was nothing short of electrically charged and exhilarating, she was finding out, with a man whose body she seemed to only notice for the first time, a beautiful form that complemented his stunning features.

He soon overtook her despite the wound in his shoulder that quite possibly was not cleaned yet, the last hundred of meters that spanned the distance between them and the horses was covered easily by him in the sudden spurt that she had seen athletes perform in their last lap of a race. He was an athlete, she realised, an athletic of the most brutal kind, those who trained with rough sports for purposes of protection and survival, not for accolade. His body was a tough testimony to it all -perfectly shaped and curved, ridges and hard lines in the right places, a grin forming on her face as she mentally slapped herself for the unhealthy amount of uncontrollable and inappropriate thoughts that were stringing themselves through her mind.

Alex had stopped, doubling over, hands over her abdomen and sides, breathing hard from the short sprint. The pain of running had finally taken over the imaginative thrill of seeing a man who ran primitively through a forest barely dressed.

Ardeth shouted a few commands in Arabic which the horses continued to ignore, wanting to stamp his foot in frustration, yet also knowing that he was now running for another reason; he was unable to stop running even if he wanted to, for the wind had provided just enough resistance as he ran to press the wet robe against his body. Its shape was most unfortunate -a wide and sharp V in front and then splitting again from the thighs downward, unless cinched together with something and worn over something else. Without a belt, he realised belatedly, it would fall away with a slight pull. But he was nearing the black stallion, which thankfully slowed down, and pressed himself tight to its side in the hope of shielding himself in the front, before grabbing its reins roughly.

The white horse galloped a little further before turning around to obey its master's call, slowing down to a trot in front of Ardeth.

Alex heard a rapid volley of Arabic from a distance and the sound of hooves, hearing the horses return with an annoyed Medjai who dressed too little.

Probably ready to do away with our only source of transport if the horses haven't decided to kill themselves yet, she thought sardonically, finally glimpsing a dripping being who was flanked by their stallions. Only a tad bit of imagination was needed to convince herself that Mount Olympus had created another capricious god who displayed a mighty physique but exhibited human characteristics, gifted with horses of good and evil, black and white

Excessive mythology was never too good for a female, she thought. Always made one sway towards the side of the silly romantics, despite the constant reality pinches she conducted on herself.

It was a mighty effort that she mustered up to keep her eyes trained only on Ardeth's face, aware of but ignoring the unhealthy amount of bareness that was shown unwittingly.

He, on the other hand, was experiencing an emotion aside from tiredness and fatigue that he had not remembered since the days of his youth, an emotion that had once again grown foreign. Embarrassment and shyness. Was his face now atypically aflame? 

"Your horse, madam," he handed the reins back to her nonchalantly, with as much dignity as he could muster, choosing humour as his shield, ignoring the pointed look on her face. "Do teach it some obedience."

"Obedience? To a tree trunk perhaps? Or maybe I should talk dear white horse to circle a tree enough times so that the reins will be firmly lodged in the crack of the trunk," she snorted.

"I do get your drift, Dr. Khalan. I only meant to jest," he replied somewhat stiffly. "It is also very much my fault for forgetting to tie them up. Forgive that grave error."

Alex sighed and took stock of their situation: two wounded people, newly exhausted from another kind of chase, badly in need of rest, possibly arguing over what should be let go.

"Let's just go and get rest, Ardeth."

"Not so fast, Dr. Khalan. There are still some things to discuss."

The short walk back was filled with more stumbling and cursing from the doctor, while her Medjai companion seemed to glide smoothly over dips and undulations of the ground without second thought.

"There is still that troubling gunshot that we have not quite answered, Ardeth." She leaned back into a large rock, sighing inwardly.

"The oasis is a large place," he said. "But you know that there is something more important that we should get out in the open."

"Yes, yes. I hear you. The touch and its electrifying effect," she said dryly.

"You simplify it too much. I am tempted to call you ignorant -those who are unaware of the greater powers at work unseen by us."

"Making me a believer?" She questioned.

He shook his head vehemently.

"No, when you see enough, you will believe as I do. But for now, I wish to finish my bath in peace. I wish to get dressed and I pray to Allah that there will be no more heart stopping distractions this time," he got up gingerly, holding his left hand tight against the crotch lest the robe flapped unnecessarily, and disappeared down the precipice once more.

She exhaled and got up, this time tying the horses down tightly, muttering more curses under her breath as the overactive mind started to visualise all that lay beneath that flimsy robe.

It did not take long for Ardeth to finish all that he had to do, relieved that there were no horses that demanded his attention, yet unsettled by the sudden shyness that had accosted him earlier.

"It is true then, Medjai, that we are both seeing strange things?" She called out as he climbed back up, dressed as appropriately as he could. Black, all covered but for his face. It was more disappointing than she cared to admit, and then decided to resolutely focus on their more important line of conversation.

"We shall call them visions," he corrected her, stretching the kinks out of his shoulders.

She hesitated to call them fragments of lost memories that were trying to rejoin themselves once more, for doing so would be admitting that there were many things that she needed to and did not yet want to grasp.

"Visions?" She snorted. But Ardeth was regarding her thoughtfully. "Dreams, perhaps."

"But it seems that I dream them at night too. Do you?"

She shook her head, telling him the negative.

"Then you add another dimension to this. How is this then, that we see different things, unclearly, yet we know that they concern us, and I dream also at night?" He was perplexed, recalling himself telling O'Connell that only the journey was written, but not the destination. He sounded so sure then, high up in the skies in the dirigible, pouring out words like a prophet on the O'Connells, wishing that he had the same convictions now as he had then.

He needed to get dressed, fast.

"I want to try something, Ardeth. Give me your hand. Just do not let go until untiluntil we know there is no more." Alex suggested hesitantly.

He was frightened at her tone, at her suggestion, torn between wanting to grab the root of the problem with his fist and running away when the opportunity finally presented itself for him to do so. Afraid suddenly, inexplicably of what he might see, of how the course of destiny will be altered. But history is already written, praise be to Allah, he reminded himself grimly; all that he was about to see was only a deeper revelation of it.

So he agreed, even though the war of doubt and want still waged strong, putting both of his hands out in invitation, watching her place her own in his before they closed their eyes, fearful of what would assault them next.

***********************

"I swear by the book of the dead, Rick, that I heard horses, far in the distance. They are somewhere around," Evelyn O'Connell pursed her lips, picking up the unfortunate gun that misfired when she tried to catch it as it fell from its holster.

"That can't be true - it's been, what, way enough time for them to reach Hamunaptra and find whatever needed to satisfy good ol' Bembridge." 

Her husband frowned.

"I am very concerned for them, honey," she frowned back at him.

"Look, Ardeth is one tough guy. If Alex Khalan is not as unflappable as she looks, he will have to rescue a damsel who finds herself in wailing distress every 28 seconds. It's good practice, by the way, since the Medjai Chief will one day have to acquire a female breeder," Rick supplied dryly.

"A female breeder, indeed!"

"But our aim is fulfilled," he said somewhat smugly. "My memory works perfectly fine. Even after a decade I managed to remember the direction of era legendary Oasis that was near Hamunaptra."

Evy considered him for a moment.

"Oh well, I suppose you are right. It is so silent and peaceful here. It's not been often that we find ourselves in a place of total stillness and peace, is it not?" She breathed in the night air deeply, appreciating the occasional fall of twigs and leaves.

"That, honey, is because you scared half the animal population off with that misfire of yours. The pocket of silence that you hear, is no coincidence."

"It was an accident, Rick!" She protested.

"The noise of the good jungle will return, given sufficient time."

That remark earned him a slap on the forearm and he groaned at his own foolish attempt in trying to out-speak his smart mouthed wide.

"And have you actually realised that we found this oasis by accident, not insulting your good memory, but because we saw a row of trees from a distance when it's printed as another 50 miles east on the map? And that we are now more than slightly lost in this oasis?" She fretted and fidgeted a bit.

"I know that honey," he soothed, before taking her hand and leading her towards their campsite. "We will get out. We somehow manage to get out, if my judgement serves me right, we did get out the last time, albeit with a bit more difficulty than expected," he said ironically.

"And Ardeth is..."

"I am as concerned about them as much as you are, even though I do not act like it at times. And we will find them, if not in the morning, then maybe the day after, maybe in Hamunaptra itself, or maybe back in Cairo, when everything is finished," he said seriously.

"Rick O'Connell, you finally speak sense." She said with no small amount of relief.

"There is something really big that is coming - maybe not for us, but maybe for Ardeth. Perhaps the gods finally realise that the boring life of a particular Egyptian chieftain needed sprucing up."

"Haven't we got enough excitement already? Now that the son and Jonathan are back safely, it looks like we did end up with a lot more than what we bargained for."

"I recall that someone did mention that Egypt was in her blood," he hummed a little, before gazing at her pointedly. "If I hadn't told you already, I approve of that statement wholeheartedly so long that Egyptian blood is confined in a library or a museum where it belongs, even though Dr. Whitsun the creep has suddenly decided that your help is not big deal after all."

"Times have changed, Rick," Evy mused mysteriously. "I think I might be finally starting to agree with you. It wasn't as if I did not glimpse the catalogue at all; there were some interesting customs, I think, judging from the artefacts that I managed to peek over Dr. Whitson's shoulder, that might have passed down to the generation of Ramses II."

"Do you think they would be of any help at all to Ardeth and Alexandra? Is that the reason that got you hightailing out of that Museum? Or, might I say -" The smug grin that appeared on his face was adorable only to her.

"Now, Rick. You are finally getting it." Came her wry reply.

"So the lady speaks."


	21. More Happenings in the Oasis

Unless the giddy heaven fall,  
And earth some new convulsion tear,  
And, us to join, the world should all  
Be cramped into a planisphere  
-Andrew Marvell, The Definition of Love

Promises were made in the firelight; there was then the swirl of voices, familiar because of their tone, yet unfamiliar because of their language were the initial products of their joined hands. In the shadow of the moon, lovers faded into the hazy background, shimmer and then disappear, becoming part of the larger cosmos, where the man and the woman interact freely.

Fragmentary pictures had partially slid into place, and slowly Ardeth was aware of the soft weeping that wafted past his ears, surprised that the tears were only his own.

_Sukh'chet huy Mene'wa Het_  
Nu'uk Ka kat'ankh Ashet  
[I will not tear myself away,  
My heart is glad beyond all measure]  
  
Once again, the similarity of the vision hit him in the gut, the same vision that he caught when he held the wounded Alexandra. Nefertiri with a Medjai guard who looked like Rick O'Connell, embracing, then shifting to the embrace of another couple, of him and another woman. He knew that this embrace was different, less certain than that of Nefertiri and her Medjai lover; it was tentative in the folds of newfound love, unsure grasps on each other.

_I thank you again, Medjai. You have truly great tolerance towards Enheduana._

He heard a voice say, and looking up, saw her, Dr. Alexandra Khalan, who called herself Enheduana-Rai, in clothes that were shockingly beautiful and elaborate, beads over her hair, exhaustion in her face. He saw himself, as the ancient Medjai then, with very short hair and beard, ancient daggers strapped to his loincloth and armour belt, tenderly caressing her.

But it was ugly too; the commotion that happened outside the royal palace, cold and hostile faces that greeted the Medjai, with him and Rick O'Connell, and then the presence of Enheduana-Rai returned to him, a momentary comfort before she bent over him, holding his own dagger in his hand, making slow incisions on his throat, draining his life's blood from him. The shock of the moment stunned him into a cry, his mind raced to recapture the agonizing moment despite the pain it brought.

"You killed me then," he heard himself speak aloud in Arabic, repeating the words over and over like a chant, with eyes still closed and hands that refused to let go.

The knife had descended without hesitation, the cuts on his throat hot and painful, the liquid that spilled out filled his nostrils deeply, and all that he was aware of was the slowing of his already erratic heartbeat.

And the vision repeated itself; as long as their hands were joined, as clear as day, as certain as he was susceptible to mortality. The embrace of the woman, and her face that bent over him, and the knife that she brought to his throat, and the blood that seeped out inexorably, deeply imprinted now.

"You killed me," Ardeth rasped out heavily, returning to the realm of the touchable, withdrawing his hand from hers, breaking contact, not knowing how long their hands were joined, but long enough for him to be filled with a loathing he did not feel before. "Enheduana-Rai, you killed me."

_Enheduana-Rai, you killed me._

Alex was not unshaken; his words had started a tremble within her that was inexplicable and she scrambled away from him slightly, looking away, not knowing how to react.

The distance between them was respectable enough, she thought sardonically, wondering not for the first time if it was the right decision she had made in journeying to Hamunaptra, or to Egypt for that matter.

"Looks like it is all that we are allowed to see." She ventured shakily, putting her fingers to her head.

"I do not know," He replied tiredly. "The visions run in circles. What I have seen for the past week just gets clearer and clearer, and it repeats itself without mercy."

It took her a long moment to speak calmly.

"Ardeth, there is nothing that I see that has anything remotely to do with killing you."

"Then how do we explain the differences? The time lapse?" He questioned harshly, unable to reprove her for her actions found in a previous incarnation, knowing it was way too preposterous, at least in the present to do so.

"I get the feeling that we only see at best, fragments. What you see, is only the incomplete jigsaw; your visions do not manifest me any more rightly than mine does yours," she stated succinctly, praying that he understood her.

"Tell me more," he commanded gently, thoughtfully.

Alexandra Khalan took a deep breath; she was probably the more skeptical partner in this journey, the one who normally withdrew and assessed, not throwing any caution to the wind, yet knowing that there was something with Ardeth Bay, the mysterious Medjai that she could not ignore. The instincts were screaming loudly, but she did not know what, not recognising that they called her to understand something deeper than she had ever expected.

"I saw...us," she began, "well, you...me, sometimes the O'Connells. There were snippets of conversation, which I did not catch. At least, in the beginning of the mass pictures. We were all dressed elaborately, ancient Egyptian. Then there was me, feeling tired, sitting by a marsh area, washing my hands, kneeling before a stream. I felt someone hauling me up roughly, and it was you, with a knife pointed at my throat. We spoke in a distant tongue, not a pretty exchange." 

Her recounting was delivered in short phrases, as if it caused her much agony. He was strangely drawn by her short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, vagrant moods that were not of her own creation.

"She said, 'I thank you this time, Aretas,'" Alex said.

Ardeth started, reeled, but remained silent, willing her to continue.

"You think that I killed you?" Her voice rose in hysterical disbelief. "That I was the only one who pointed a blade at you?"

He shook his head mutely, chastised and contrite.

"Well, I did take a knife back at you for that threat, until you let me go reluctantly, telling me that I was a murderess, of the queen Nefertiri. Then, something else slid in place of that - there was us again, and we -" She could not bring herself to continue, not knowing if it was embarrassment that stopped her, or simply caution, for not revealing all that he wanted to hear.

"Do not hide it from me. You should know by now that you do not face this alone," Ardeth prompted.

"And I found myself running up the stairs, looking backwards briefly, and the cycle starts all over again," she finished simply.

He noticed that she had avoided completing where she had exactly left off, telling him only the last part of what she saw, not pressing her any further.

They sat in silence that was heavy with the uncovered emotions and frayed nerves of the day, hearing the occasional nocturnal reptile pass them, the croak of frogs and toads comforting as they posed no immediate cause for undue alarm.

"The high priest Imhotep lived during the time of Seti I," Ardeth said suddenly. "His illicit love affair with Seti's chosen wife Anck-su-namun led to Seti's murder and he was cursed with the Hom-Dai, to the undead. Evelyn O'Connell resurrected him a decade ago."

She was watching him with curious eyes that widened in shock at that revelation, knuckles between her teeth.

"Nightmarish," Alex murmured.

"He was put back in his grave again, not without leaving destruction in his wake, earthquakes, rumblings, and listen to this -the reawakening of the plagues of Egypt. Imhotep still loved Anck-su-namun, if you did not know, wanting to resurrect her as well, and Evy was his human sacrifice."

"Uncanny! And to think that we are looking at the time of the Exodus..."

"Hamunaptra collapsed," he continued, not noticing her excited interruption, caught aloft in his memories. "And weeks ago, Anck-su-namun's reincarnation started an expedition in the collapsed area of Hamunaptra, with the backing and financial aid of the curator of the British Museum, to unearth the buried Imhotep."

"Quite the return to hell, I see."

"You are quite close, Alexandra," He looked squarely at her, and she could not stop the shiver than ran through her spine, could not stop her enslavement by his intense gaze. "But then he was awakened for a reason. It is the year of the scorpion, according to Egyptian astrological sources. The Scorpion King was to awaken, and those who could battle the scorpion king successfully could either use his army - the supernatural army of Anubis to rule the world, or to use send it back to the Underworld."

"I never knew," Alex pursed her lips, shaking her head slightly at the extraordinariness of it all.

"Imhotep was the only one whose strength could grow as he arose. It was simply a battle of the evils." 

He told her then, about the kidnapping of young Alex O'Connell, the dream that Evy had had of Nefertiri on the dirigible, her death, and resurrection by her very own son, the subsequent hurried packing to go back to England to forget the chaos, and the sudden change in plan when Evy decided to stay instead, only shipping her brother and son out of trouble.

"But what about you, Ardeth?" She inserted, feeling as if it was only a side of the story that she had heard.

"The twelve tribes of the Medjai were outside Ahm Shere, battling the Army of Anubis," he said flatly, feeling the dulled pain that would not go away.

"You lost your warriors. Many of them." The gravity of his situation sunk in, and she slumped forward, not rebelling against the sudden aging that seemed to take place in her body, wondering what a decade really signified when the journey of three millennia was still being written.

"You said the word 'nightmarish' just now. It is just that. Khaliq and Hussein, my commanders, are doing what they can in my absence."

"And you are here with me? Isn't the chief of the Medjai -"

He held up a hand, which he immediate lowered after abruptly cutting her off to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"I shall not feel guilty about leaving both my capable commanders in charge," he whispered, wanting to convince himself that he did indeed had an explainable reason for wanting to ride to Hamunaptra.

She was bewildered, he knew, only realising the enormity of her actions, her fateful entry as a Bembridge Scholar who wormed her way into their lives as they began the tedious work of reconstruction and healing, caught up once more in a continuing intrigue of three thousand years.

Alex wanted to comfort him, to sling an arm around his shoulders, squeezing it hard in a show of support in the masculine fashion that she knew males like Rick O'Connell were prone and partial to, but the man sat before her now, who bravely confessed his weaknesses and uncertainties, who was not swayed by pressure to execute anything rashly, needed more than the slap in the back. But she also suspected that the pride that ran through him was also strong, and harder than his emotions, a pride that may not receive compassion or pity openly.

"But you are not immune, Ardeth. Not to anything for long," she mused aloud, taking his hand, making both of them gasp aloud, trembling slightly, at the composite images that assailed them once again, as they saw each other in the past and present simultaneously, in the different visions that flew past their eyes and in their minds. They saw each other in the present, sitting peacefully in the middle of the oasis, kindred friends who held each other's hands in comfort, friends who were no longer sure if they were such in ancient times.

"No, none of us are," he agreed, shifting, lying on his back and taking her with him, putting arms around her.

His touch and loose embrace was all too welcome; the man who now held her was far too remarkable to stay by her side, who held so many burdens of his own to add her to his list, she thought regretfully.

"The visions aren't too bad at all, aren't they, once you get used to them?" She asked in jest, learning to marvel at the astonishing broil of present and past that swirled around them.

But the smile could not reach his eyes; the troubles of the weeks had perhaps made him sink more than he had expected, made him realise that he was no longer the man who had boundless energy to fulfil all the world had laid on him as chief, or perhaps the most sobering, that no one attained invincibility. The tragedy of the Army of Anubis had called him only deeper into despair, and it seemed that all was powerless to halt this descent, until this woman, this mysterious and additional life-force had appeared, offering something that was elusive but eternal, only when he chased and caught it.

"If this is all that we see, the repetitions of them, then I suppose it is something we could get used to," Ardeth conceded reluctantly. "But for now, we sleep. There are only a few more hours to go before the sun rises. We will ride for Hamunaptra only when we are well rested."

"Hmm."

_May Allah cover us in His infinite wisdom,_ he prayed reverently, a clenched hand touching his lips and his forehead, before moving his lips briefly on her forehead.

"We live two lives each time we touch."

She was lodged in his arms comfortably, barely aware of his warm kiss.

"Sleep well, Alexandra," he said in the most tender of voices, before surrendering himself, following her into sweet oblivion.

************************

The night was still young for the O'Connells, who were comparatively more well-rested.

Rick O'Connell lay still, wanting to shout to the dark and all that was around him, for the woman who had made his life so different from what he thought it might have turned out -

"Honey?" Evy sat up straight from her position of repose on her husband's chest, poking him lightly.

"Yeah?" He placed both palms on her shoulders, gently kneading the knots he found there.

"Mmmm..."

"And you were saying?" He queried, pleased with himself that she could still find herself speechless at his ministrations.

"Mmmmmmm..."

"Evelyn!" The fingers slowed down, before patting themselves on her back, impatient.

"I...well, nothing."

"You do not poke someone in the chest to tell him nothing, eh?" A roguish grin was appearing gradually on his face, making her heart skip a beat, even after all those years of marriage.

She touched his face, where the lips were upturned, beguiled.

"I, just, well, cannot keep Alex and Ardeth out of my mind. Mad, isn't it? I'm more worried for a woman whom I barely know, who carries the same name of our son, who is safe back home"

"Safe?" He snorted. "In the care of Jonathan Carnahan?"

She slapped him lightly.

"Jesting, honey, jesting."

"I did, after all, grow up with my brother when our parents died early. At least I turned out to be someone whom you found appealing." She said directly with laughing eyes, secure in the knowledge that she was well loved.

He groaned at the little piece of indirect self-praise, knowing that he would have gone to the ends of the earth for her had she requested, let alone to stay in Egypt, to continue working in a land that had already heaped so much upon their family.

"Past scenes of childhood through rose-tinted glasses. Of course, honey." He smirked, threading their fingers together.

"Rick, I love you. And I am so grateful that you're in this with me. I can't imagine anyone else." 

That declaration that came out abruptly surprised him, flooding him with unchartered pangs that he'd never known before he'd known her, finding wings on every wind when her love was with him.

"I would do anything for you, Evy." There was uncharacteristic seriousness in his voice, and she knew that he recalled yet again, the time when Anck-su-namun had stabbed her in front of him.

"I know, honey, I know." Her eyes met his, and their gaze held for the longest time. "But no unhappy thoughts at the moment."

"That is because your mind is busy with the dreaded mass of cursed rubble that lies in the near distance."

"Hamunaptra is a place that is very historically important, Rick, and that dreaded mass of cursed rubble would not have been - well we go to help Ardeth and fulfil the requirements that Bembridge have placed on us. That is all I will say -"

"And all I will say is: as much as I am tempted to spit on the remains of Hamunaptra, Imhotep and his dust soldiers, I will now...uumph -" 

A hand was placed gently over Rick O'Connell's mouth to shush him.

"Did you hear that?" Evy whispered.

"Hear what?" He matched her volume, senses on alert.

"That sound."

"What sound?"

"That sound!"

"What?"

"Don't be daft, honey. That sound which you are so familiar with."

"What sound are you talking about?"

"Listen!"

"No, I don't - wait, I hear it!"

"What are you waiting for, honey?" Evy grinned at her husband who was already trooping towards the direction of the sound.

"What a rare find!" He said after approximately two minutes of struggle.

"I'd say!"

"May I?"

"My pleasure."

"Will you -"

"Of course."

"Right now, Rick."

"Hand me the -"

The heaviness of the object placed immediately in his hands made him stop in mid-sentence, neither of them talking until the task was skilfully and quickly accomplished.

And so they had their dinner of roasted pigeon, grateful that she had heard their dinner approaching, shameful that they had not packed sufficient food, even after ten long years of desert experience.

They had not minded their dirty hands one bit, nor the unconventional way their dinner had come to them, nor the twist of events that found them riding again towards Hamunaptra, not when their stomachs cried out loudly for sustenance; the trouble that loomed ahead momentarily paused its nagging when they were in each other's company, relishing the unusual circumstances by which they were thrown together, elated by the twist of fate that had allowed the tapestry to be woven in that particular manner that proclaimed them husband and wife throughout time.


	22. The Persecution of the Medjai

I will lay you to rest on a bed of loving care  
And will let you stay in a restful dwelling, a dwelling of the left  
Princes of the earth will kiss your feet  
I will make the people weep for you, mourn for you  
I will fill the proud people with sorrow for you  
And I myself will neglect my appearance after your death  
Clad only in a lionskin, I will roam the open country.  
\- Sin-leqe-unnini, The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Interim Rule of the Viceroy Sahure, 19th Dynasty, Egypt  
A few months later

The spreading discontent in Egypt was of no consequence to him, Sahure thought as he sat flamboyantly upon the throne of Ramses, vacated so that he might ascend it in the Pharaoh's absence, after months of serpentine scheming.

He was, after all, indirectly ruling in the name of Ramses; his actions were covered and protected under the inheritance and the heritage of the Pharaohs and all the favour that the gods had lavished upon them. Power was the intoxicating drug that he had not gotten his sufficient fill of; only after strong persuasion was Ramses II able to find his feet again, to become a shadow of the great conqueror he once was, to lead his armies out in the final attempt to recapture their Hebrew slaves.

Four moon cycles after Yuya's funeral, Sahure measured. Enough time given for Ramses to ride out to the Red Sea with half of Egypt's cities emptied of its male population.

_They weep for you, Ramses, just as they weep for themselves. They mourn all of Egypt's loss, but I will restore Egypt's glory, which you were not able to do,_

He smiled, pleased that the events had led to an opportunity for him to prove himself more capable than Egypt's great King. 

_Right now, I rule in your name. But in time, they will remember me as the restorer of Egypt, the insignificant Viceroy who outdid Ramses II._

"We bring a townsmen, Viceroy." 

A voice had, in an unwelcome fashion, interrupted his musings. 

The Medjai had returned, flanking the sides of a common Egyptian, seeking an audience with the Viceroy.

"My Lord, blessed was Ramses' rule, and may yours too, be blessed." The Egyptian bowed low, faltering with his next words. "But my Lord, villages north of Thebes have been drying with thirst ever since the plagues had afflicted us, the locusts had eaten our crops, and no regeneration has taken place. I beg of you my Lord, to aid us in your splendorous riches."

"Were not the barns filled with grain, and the waters of the Nile drenching the fields with their life?" Sahure asked, blinking his eyes. "Do you dare insult the gods of Egypt by saying otherwise?"

"I do not dare, my Lord!" The man fell to his knees in terror.

"I would not place great worry on your troubles, if I were in your place," the Viceroy returned calmly. "Take him away, Medjai. Why do you not move? I tell you this under the decree of Pharoah Ramses II himself!"

Ramses' council of governance had been made available to Sahure; the council had been already deeply divided during Ramses' administration now threatened to fall apart without the orders and tight fists of the Pharaoh. But it was necessary that the sustainability of belief could only, and inevitably come by force; liberty had become so precious that it had to be carefully rationed. Great and remarkable men came to be such through means better left unexamined.

The court awaited Sahure's decision, fearing the worst, as the viceroy yielded to the desire of the moment, consuming himself within his growing rage.

"Burn that village, Medjai, all the men, women and children; do what you want with them. Take the crops and whatever you may find useful," Sahure ordered loudly. 

Circumstances must be created such that Egypt has a need for a leader. There must be, after all, an affliction for people to realise the glory of Egypt.

"You misunderstand, Viceroy," Aretas spoke when no one else dared to. "The Medjai are also the protectors of our own, half of us warriors are away with Pharaoh defending the cause of Egypt, while the remaining of us are here as scribes. We cannot do such a thing as you have said."

The fury of the Viceroy was not unprecedented; Ramses had given spectacular displays of wrath to his court before; a mimic of his actions and emotions would serve Sahure well, should there be someone needed to emulate Egypt's leader.

"Are you not warriors as well? Did I not forbid you to record the plagues and the afflictions of the Hebrews? Did I not tell all from the start that I wanted and Egypt who could remember herself only gloriously and majestically? Were you not warned adequately?"

Aretas knew; the memory was ugly in his mind, painful on his heart. Khamet had been far too careless; his scroll, written of the plague of the locusts, had been discovered by the guards who were loyal to Ramses and the Viceroy. His Medjai brother, dragged from his quarters and tortured hideously, had refused to reveal where the Medjai kept the rest of the scrolls.

It was Aretas who had found him in the torture cell, half-dead, with his skin and back beaten out, unrecognisable after the cruelty meted out to him. Bound, imprisoned, with already torn feet and hands in shackles, he was immovable and prostrate, for the cause that had bent him only downwards, watching the end of his life approach.

_Protect them well, Aretas. I am not deceived by the wiles of the court,_ he had murmured without strength before he slumped into the arms of Aretas.

Khamet had fallen face forward into the Underworld then, without hesitation, with his bloody teeth biting the ground, relieved of his duty, sense of honour not unstung, the first of the Medjai to be vanquished.

He had been wordless as Khamet died, not unaware of the punishment that awaited the warrior-scribes should the rest of them be discovered, yet nonetheless paralysed with dread and fear at Khamet's state.

The systematic torture and death of the remaining scribes had continued, for after Khamet, was Pakharu, and then came Besenmut, the scribes who wrote of the plagues of water that turned into blood, and the hail sent from the heavenlies. The raid had come by night, by soldiers of a new breed, those whom Sahure had rallied himself around, those who had no regard for the royal guards of the Pharaoh.

The gods be thanked, that they had not lived through torture as Khamet did, although he wished that they had died a more painless death.

The records written by Pakharu and Besenmut had been discovered after the raid initiated by the Viceroy, and had burned together with their bodies publicly, a warning of Sahure to the Medjai and the commoners of the fate of those who defied the crown.

There were hardly Medjai left to bury their own dead, Aretas thought. By the luck of the gods had he and Djosyn and a few others remained in the shadows, their own scrolls hidden tightly away. But no hiding place was forever secure; it felt as if the time was coming, where death might soon stare him and Djosyn in the face. But until Sahure found the incriminating evidence, they were momentarily safe.

_Three papyrus scrolls were already found,_ Sahure had warned. _I have all reason to believe that there are more to root out. You are safe now, only because I have not found them._

Djosyn had returned to the Medjai camp for the purpose of relocating the camp, securing the young Medjai boys who were to take on Egypt's future safety while Aretas had remained in the palace, taking charge of the scribes, overseeing them till the scrolls were completed. Now that they were, added care had to be taken that the remaining did not fall into the wrong hands.

Djosyn's and Aretas' scrolls were one of the most important records -that of the actual Exodus of the Hebrews and that of the Passover, significant enough to bring Sahure on the hunt for them. Hasty word was sent to Djosyn and Nefertiri, warning them of the impending danger that faced the Medjai, the grimness of the domestic situation paralleling that of the civil wars that Egypt had fought during every intermediate period.

There was an obstinate silence that presently permeated the palace hall; the silence spoke of uncertainties felt about the Viceroy's boundaries of power, but also torn with the need to look to a leader as magnificent as Ramses had been.

"Very well then, Medjai, Sahure said, angered. You disobey the king when you disobey me. Think you that Ramses did not rule by such principles? Away now, Medjai. There are many others who do not present shifting loyalty to the throne as you do."

"Viceroy, the Medjai are loyal to -"

But Sahure had already swept out of the hall in contempt, his courtiers at his tail.

The rule of the Viceroy was very troubling, Aretas thought as he walked down the corridor that would lead him to the secret chambers where the Medjai scribes had feverishly recorded the occurrences of the plagues and the mysterious power of the Hebrew God that had taken Ramses himself into the desert.

So preoccupied was he with his thoughts that he jumped at the hand that grabbed him from behind pillar, the hand that swiftly moved to cover his mouth lest he shouted in alarm. He turned sharply, other hand on the hilt of his blade, his grip loosening when he saw the woman that had grown to become the centre of his cosmos.

"Do not do that, Rai!" He whispered loud enough for her ears, before turning his lips on them, making her desirous of him with that single, fluid motion.

His attentions were too welcome; they were too bold for her to resist, too sweet for her to turn down, despite the public place they were in. He had become an addiction, the way she had become his, not realising that the thirst and hunger for him only grew as they were caught feverishly in each other, as they consumed more of each other.

"I need to speak to you," he rasped against her, feeling her plaint body held to his against the pillar, the comfort of the world made his.

Aretas had initially thought otherwise, had thought that a swallow of her might have cured him of her, yet he had watched his own need of her grow in frightening proportions, until she had obliterated all that stood in his path, and he gladly crowned her queen of his heart.

"Then say it," she replied, stilling under his attentions. The accumulation of sensations that accompanied the nights with him had released the wretched bonds of human woe, even as they had been rashly importunate with each other.

"I am gladdened by your face, that is all. The tempest that is Egypt matters little when you are here."

"Medjai, you are not telling me something," she frowned, looking deep into his eyes, seeing the uncertain flecks that had appeared in the deep brown.

"I tell you the truth," he said solemnly, unable to muster a smile for her.

"You make me glad too, Aretas," she sighed, "and you give me pleasure with more splendour than the rising or setting suns that bathe Egypt in great glory."

"Then come with me, come away with me, Rai," a thought suddenly occurring to him, where taking flight with her appealed suddenly much more than labouring for an absent Pharaoh, a King who had unwittingly become his adversary simply because he coveted and wanted his royal and forbidden concubine.

Had Djosyn encountered such stark emotions or had he stumbled onto them as well when Nefertiri had bewitched him?

She was watching him with no small measure of misery.

"Where can we go where we will not live in fear? Where can we go, how far can we run before we are caught up with, and humiliated in public?" She argued painfully, looming threats and circumstances nevertheless eclipsing passions that already ran deep, knowing instinctively that they had been running ever since they started their illicit trysts, fire conducted on the fringes.

"Want has made me a selfish man," he confessed heavily. "Forgive me, Rai, I lost myself then and did not think as a man."

"Aretas," she breathed, and then covered his lips desperately with hers, telling him without words how she wanted the same, that there surely existed a place where sorrow was banished from the filthy world that Egypt had become. "I would follow you if the days allowed us!"

He returned her kiss with the consistently ravenous hunger he had shown with her, excellently ardent and excruciatingly conscious when it came to the physical arts.

"The time is coming, Rai, where, I can see my end by the hand of Egypt's Viceroy," he told her with no mince of words, holding her shoulders with strong hands, not knowing if that action was a comfort he tried to offer her, or if she was in fact, the support that he clung to.

She did not know how to respond, not with the man who told her the utmost truth, even if it meant bad tidings.

"No, you fight, Aretas. You fight," she told him urgently in turn. "Or we must go, as you have spoken. We will go, we run in the cover of the night!"

"It is the final turning," he said finally after a long pause, and the pathway right or left leaves us no escape. "I cannot deny it any longer, Rai! The Medjai are dying, and all we have now are -" he gestured helplessly with his left hand, "I do not even know what we have left."

"Your honour," she said not without a tinge of bitterness. "Is that all that means to the Medjai? That they will willingly clear all that lies in the path to honour, even if honour demands sacrifices that wither the inner spirit?"

By the gods, he had never thought about honour that way, never expecting that he had to, during his lifetime, choose between the Medjai and the woman he loved.

"I do not know how to answer you, Rai. It tears me apart."

"Aretas, listen!" Her voice speared through the thick haze that was forming around his consciousness, rousing him with visionary gleams, and there and then he felt that he could conquer the impossible, thousand valleys far and wide, the overflow of the Nile and all of Egypt's enemies that had grown dangerously in power.

"We have not wasted our days," he continued quietly, nor will we waste our days in the time that will come.

He hummed a prayer litany, then, softly, soothingly to her, as they stood in full view of anyone who passed by, proclaiming that they were together, in inviolable quietness that lovers command.  
 __  
At the feet of Isis  
We lay the twin price of the pearls of Heaven  
At the feet of Isis,  
We kneel, we cannot see  
Her feet are darkness,  
But her face is in High Heaven,  
For he towards the vision gazes up,  
Finds first his life's blood in her cup!

"We are held fast by longings and by other sentiments," she sighed. "The greatest tragedy is not doing what we wish to do. Aretas, somehow I do not believe that all of us are destined to live happily."

The soft echoes that their voices produced seemed to snigger at the doubt that had fallen on them, telling them in a rising cadence, and in unarticulated words that they now stood on perforated ground that would be suspended in pleasure no longer.

"That, we will leave in the bosom of the gods," he affirmed, if not wanting to convince her, wanting to reassure himself. "You are so beautiful to me, Rai. You make me forget all that is rotten in Egypt, and you heal that sickness that has begun eating at my soul."

She could not bear to hear him much longer; it seemed that each progressive word that fell from his lips brought them closer to an abyss that they had not yet bring themselves to envision.

Their lips met again and again, searing, torturing, reaffirming all that they had of each other, all that was familiar to them, all that they wanted to be real.

Hands that searched out the hidden contours of each other were sometimes as light as gauze, as heavy as weapons of war, pressing, gripping, caressing, moulding, uncontrollable.

The struggle not to unleash their overwhelming passions then and there was eventually conquered, its temporary repression a looming bastion of firearms fringed with fire, promising explosiveness that would annihilate later.

"Not now," he rasped against her, "but soon."

"Yes, soon, tonight," she whispered back, breathing erratically, flushed from the erotic manner of his strokes.

"I have peace with you, Aretas, even though temporary, when I lose myself in you, undone by you. Let us stay this way, if not forever, only now."


	23. Journey's End

Nefertiri stood outside the Medjai tent that was Djosyn's, thanking the gods that he had returned before the end of his duty, even if his sole purpose was to relocate the ailing Medjai and their quickly dwindling numbers.

It was the tail end of sunset again, the same sunset that she had observed, unchanging as night would surely come, except for the variation of the hues and colours since Djosyn had whisked her away from the palace. The darkness that would descend very soon and cloak Egypt in mysterious splendour had never seemed more welcome, compared to the growing darkness that she knew was found in the hearts of the Medjai.

But Djosyn seemed already lost to her; he lay outside of herself, the change in their relationship still left unspoken.

"I do not know what has happened in the Egyptian court, but Aretas sent word that we have lost three of our scribes, their scrolls disappearing with them," Djosyn had told her several times.

"So Sahure thinks of continuing Ramses' legacy," she had mused aloud.

"We do not know," his reply to her was grim and direct. "There is evil awake in the land and we do not know if there is enough light that fights it. Man now knows of no world where stories and retellings are honoured, and has lost the power of crying tears that are stirred by them."

"Djosyn," she had grasped him then, "you alone cannot carry the weight of the Medjai on your shoulders!"

His gaze had turned hooded, flickers of emotion than ran through his eyes quickly disappearing as he suddenly turned on her.

"Why do you speak this way, Nefertiri?"

She had been taken aback; he had never spoken this way to her before; the warrior front that emerged overtaking the gentle and tender man that she had come to associate with him and in that moment she had despaired so painfully, wondering if it was then ever possible to know another completely.

Her response had been only a glacial stare, dumbfounded, and not immediately accepting, before she had slowly turned and took steps nowhere, as long as it was steps that led away from him.

He had not stopped her then, with his gentle hand, and she had construed it as a fissure in their suddenly brittle relationship; the unsettled time stretching the strength of even those who were thought as unbending.

Djosyn had grown more distant since that encounter, entering his tent that night only when she was fast asleep, and rising before she fully awoke. It was a pattern that was to continue in the days to come, physical closeness not accounting for their separation that was wider than the length of the Nile.

His intimate gestures and touches had ceased completely; it was as if desire had died the same demise as his other warriors-scribes had.

She had moaned the loss inwardly, too proud to beg, yet vacillating between proud, trembling indignation and self-pity, callously reminding herself that the queen of Egypt need not have lowered herself for a mere Medjai guard.

He was racing against methodical cycles of the sun and the moon; the tide of the Nile that went on despite all that he did, she thought bitterly, knowing that it had not been anything otherwise ever since she had lost the child. It was so long ago, she thought, strangely fitting that that fearful memory should recede as far back as she could will it.

She was restless now, outside his tent, hands stroking her shoulders in memory of him, feeling yet again as an individual who was accepted because of Djosyn, wondering about her rootlessness now that he had in effect, rejected her.

She did not know where he was. It appeared as if nightfall would come and pass as it did for nights that had abruptly turned from glorious to torturous, granting her his fleeting and unspeaking presence.

Nefertiri's gaze on the far western horizon held, and the sand dunes appeared to shift despite the still dusky air. She squinted slightly and with growing dread, caught sight the Egyptian soldiers heading towards the cluster of tents where she stood. The heart seemed to cease its rhythm of life in her throat, only a cracked squeak emerging past her strangled vocal cords.

"Djosyn!"

Where was he? Had he seen their advance towards the camp?

The threat of barbarous activity had dulled her senses, plunging her into a haze, surreal and numbing, paralleling the night in which the Angel of Death swept across Egypt killing all the heathen firstborns, the night that she lost her own child.

"Run, see Pharaoh's soldiers! They come for you!"

A voice was heard shouting, and it belonged to him, her Djosyn, answering her silent question. Yet it was its unfaltering, hard tone that told her much more. The ironic twist and shift in the Egyptian political world had made the game such that Egypt and its current ruler had turned against its beloved Medjai.

His voice thawed the freeze in her limbs, although she had not caught sight of him. Without hesitation, she ran around the tents, lifting their flaps hurriedly, raising the alarm, and screaming to all who would hear.

_Ne'aat! Ne'aat! Za'mankh em-heb!_

The sleepiness of the camp was rubbed away by the hand of violence that was sweeping towards them, unarmed Medjai with open fear in their eyes frozen and embedded in the ground in shock.

_Za'mankh em-heb! Za'mankh em-heb!_

Several footsteps she heard as she passed from a tent to another, her heart sinking, seeing that they were outnumbered.

The already unbalanced population of the Medjai left in the clusters were their women and children; the remaining men folk were those of the council, the disabled and Djosyn.

Many staggered outside their tents, squandering precious seconds as their eyes focused on the advancing soldiers, before regaining their ground and fleeing where their feet took them.

_Kep'tah! Kep'tah!_

Their swords were drawn; she could now make out their faces - impassioned, lacking rage; mere soldiers carrying out orders of the Viceroy.

"Flee!"

Flee! Flee! She shouted at them, frenzied and panting, unheeding of her own safety as she herded the children towards the craggy mountains that were a distance away.

Riders who rode for the singular intention of destruction bore down on the Medjai camp that had only been partially relocated by Djosyn, scattering those, who ran in all directions receiving the brutal punishment of decapitation when they were caught by the infinitely faster Egyptian soldiers on horses.

The screams had increased; they were unnaturally loud and they pierced her ears; she could barely hear herself hollering above the din, and she could not erase the imprints that the frightened faces made in her sight as they fled mindlessly for cover.

There were many of them, like the torrents that the Nile was capable of, Nefertiri thought as they came closer, producing during the flood season that would not halt until all the ground surrounding had been inundated with red and fertile blood.

The sight was as vicious as it was awesome; the daylight fading into a darkness that gradually blanketed the riders that stormed the village, the widespread torching and the silver sheen of blades only hints of chaos and violence unpalatable.

Merciless they were, noteworthy of Ramses, and now Sahure, as they pillaged and burnt the Medjai tents, slashing wildly at those who ran too slowly. They fell, one after another, the lame and the elderly, the loss of the wisdom of the tribe.

At the corner of her eye, she saw and heard the dull thud of a body hitting the ground, the white hair of Ahura spread around him, the legendary Medjai who had lived through the reigns of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun.

Djosyn was returning their furious slashes, initially strong and unwavering; fear was an acrid taste on his tongue, yet grit and fortitude were the strength that flowed through his limbs, until he visibly weakened from the strain and the defeating knowledge that the strength of one was never comparable nor enough to the strength of many. There were screams of women and children who were also punished brutally for their husbands' treachery to the Egyptian court, as she ran with those who ran towards nearby cliffs, averting her eyes from multiple blades that swung downwards, without mercy.

Nefertiri thought she heard Djosyn's cry of pain, but the frantic turns of her head as she ran still did not grant her the comfort of knowing that he was alright, for she had not caught sight of him at all.

The beating of hooves down her trail intensified, and she thought she heard the powerful swing of the blade as it arched through the air, sailing towards her back -

"The royal Queen Nefertiri I see her!"

It was a young soldier who had seen her, with the looks of a one who still had the lingering ruddiness of youth, who had miraculously stopped the trajectory and the momentum of his sword from slicing through the middle of her back in shock, recognising the former chief queen of Egypt.

"My queen, forgive me, but you must come with me. I cannot allow this." He dismounted with the swiftness of lightning, bounding her hands with rough hemp. It was a half-hearted struggle that she had put up; her athletic training and quick reflexes discarded in panic.

She was dragged back to what was left of the Medjai camp, a sorry place of tattered and stray pieces of cloth, limbs that had been hacked apart. A solitary man knelt amid the ruin surrounded by other warriors, the smote of one man's anger.

Oh gods, Djosyn!

He knelt face down, bound in the hands as well as the legs, head snapping up as he turned sharply at the sound of the approaching woman kept in check by the young soldier, arms visibly bulging under the effort to free himself, under the bonds that held him captive, meeting her gaze and holding her captive in turn.

It was all in vain; he winced at the blunt jab that the hilt of a sword made on his neck, before the man who held the blade spoke.

"The Medjai traitor, you see before you, Queen Nefertiri," a mocking voice drifted towards her, a finger pointed accusingly at Djosyn, crafty and sneering.

The tip of a blade was held against his neck by their leader - Sahure! It was him! Speechless, she saw that it was Sahure himself who had rode out into the desert in search of the Medjai and their scrolls, the leader of the raid.

"But no unnecessary words needed, my Queen. You once escaped Ramses' order when he decreed your execution," he said so softly that she strained to hear him.

That was the night that she had cheated death, whose swift wings had not quite passed over her.

Today, the luxury is mine to allow you to watch your beloved bear that execution for you.

Djosyn was unmoving, wordless as he stared first at Sahure, before turning his eyes to Nefertiri, his gaze increasing in intensity, immobilising her.

_Be strong,_ he seemed to say. _And I will see you again._

_Surely the gods of the Underworld will not be unkind, Djosyn,_ she thought of the tragedy that life had comprised lately, the rise and fall of strive and beauty.

With a slight nod of his head to his commander, the sword was raised for the last time, deliberately slow and unhurried for the Viceroy to savour his moment of triumph over the Medjai. Djosyn held her gaze, kept his unwavering eyes set on hers as the blade that was pointed at his neck, held by Sahure's hand, momentarily lifted itself in a high arc towards the sky, its menacing gleam disappearing as fast as it appeared as the trajectory of the downward swing slicing the thick bone, severing major arteries and joints, his life unexpectedly snuffed as if it were flames that danced in desperation in the advent of strong wind.

She could not breathe, choking in the roiling anger, helplessness, pain and breathlessness meshed together in her as the sword was lifted. All she saw, as was what he wished, were his eyes that held her wretched face, conveying the love that he wanted her to remember for always, the last remembrance of him before they shut tightly at the impact of the blade connecting with the hard bone and muscle of the neck.

_Nei, Djosyn, Nei!_

Her mind screamed those words, but her dry mouth could not work sound. 

Had she not watched Seti also die by the sharp end of the blade as well, by the hand of someone he had utmost trust for? Had not Djosyn and the Medjai died by the hand of the Egyptian court that they had faithfully served?

Djosyn's end had been swift and quiet, and she soon found herself in a dizzying universe that held only her and Djosyn; it was only her in the desolate company of corpses that freely littered the ground. The soldiers and Sahure had suddenly vanished from sight, madly spiralling into nothingness, and she did not feel herself dropping to her knees in the red, red blood that leaked from his severed neck, nor know how long she knelt in front of Djosyn's dismembered body, reconciling the sight before her with the man whom she had only seen as whole and complete.

Now he was truly lost to her, the breach that separated them before too unimportant in contrast to this permanent breach of death, which words and embraces seemed no longer effective.

But it could not have been long, even though an eternity passed, for the impatient stomping of the hooves of the horses reached her ears, penetrating the clouded, grieved mind.

"Take her away, bring her back to the harem, which is now mine to enjoy," the Viceroy ordered, before mounting his chariot and heading in the direction of the palace.

Stunned, she felt arms hauling her onto the back of one of the horses as they retreated from the ruins of the camp. It was over; no last or backward glances that she gave, her mourning for him spent during those moments when the cosmos had revolved around them. The world was so mute and parched, silent again, the moon so pale.

The siroccos had started their eerie howlings, ghosts of the desert that joined her mourning, rapidly shifting the sands over the scattered corpses and the ruined tents, burying them in nature's own manner, forever lost.


	24. Counterpoint: part I

Without Love's jewel inside of me,  
Let the bazaar of my existence by destroyed stone by stone.  
O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names,  
You who know how to pour the wine into the chalice of the body,  
You who give culture to a thousand cultures,  
You who are faceless but have a thousand faces

We will see a thousand chiefs prostrate themselves,  
And a circle of ecstatic troubadours will play.  
-Jalaluddin Rumi

Present day Egypt

It was her name that she heard before the chirping of the birds that woke her up, still entrapped in the circle of strong arms, as a voice said with the tinge of wistfulness and regret, in the lilting Arabic accent that she had grown accustomed to.

"Alexandra."

Chameleon eyes met deep brown ones, and held.

"We reach Hamunaptra today?"

Abruptly, the arms around her loosened and disappeared, and the intimate familiarity followed it into oblivion, his eyes shifting as he nodded wordlessly.

"I'm sorry," Ardeth stated. "Hamunaptra brings out the worst in people," he observed dryly.

"I'd say," She sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes before making her way down the slight precipice to the pool of water, smiling slightly at the memory of Ardeth barely clothed.

He was ready with the horses when she returned, handing her the reins of her horse, brow raised ever so slightly as she swung herself up. Mounting his own steed, he stretched out an arm towards her critically, examining her pallor before the horses took off.

"Are you sure you are ready to continue with this?"

She fidgeted slightly before answering.

"Ardeth, surely we have to travel this road, ready or not. How can we not, when..." She gestured helplessly, "How can we not want to dig deeper when your mere touch brings sensations and and memories so wondrous and so frightening at the same time? How can we not go towards that something that calls so audibly?"

He sighed.

"Yes, yes, I understand."

The horses galloped forward, the blur of greens getting sparser as they charged out of the plant haven; she knew that lull of peace was a mere respite and what awaited them was probably something so unexpected and shocking that facing it took the courage that perhaps only mighty men had.

"Turn, turn around, how beautiful the world is!" She sang softly, impromptu, startling him with the musicality of the tune sung with her low voice.

"What was that?" He turned to her, and she was immediately glad for the horse that supported her legs that had turned weak and wobbly at his direct gaze again.

After the swift curse at her disobedient legs, she replied.

"Nursery rhymes."

At his mystified look, she explained, "Folklore, but well, meant for children. They were written in verse, some made absolutely no sense, the others, well, some contained darker meanings, if you get my drift. This one's Italian."

He looked bemused, and then shook his head.

"Songs can still a tempest, dispelling the stormy air, but I still wonder what children of the west are taught," he said wryly.

"I had never experienced a conventional school life, so I'm not the best person to answer that," she said pointedly.

They fell into companionable silence for a while, before Ardeth hesitantly took her hand in his large one, and they trotted that way slowly for sometime, neither of them voicing emotions that lay precariously at the surface. But her look was no longer veiled, and the depth of her eyes seemed to darken; the shadow of a smile still lay on her upper lip, a fading, almost anxious smile that seemed to call for a kiss.

"My memory. It seems to return in pieces," he ventured tentatively.

"What?"

"I am remembering odd pieces of information regarding the Medjai that I read about very long ago, which had slipped from the head."

"Oh no, please do not say it's something prophetic again," she groaned.

"I do not know," he told her honestly. "The missing section in Medjai history, as I did tell you before, occurred during the time of Ramses, the very time we are intrigued by. Butlegend says, that the scrolls are buried with the last of the Medjai protectors, in Hamunaptra. I cannot tell you more, I'm sorry."

"There are just so many questions," Alex murmured.

"And the Medjai rose again after two generations. They were again the protectors of the Pharaohs, special guards who were highly trusted. The records start there again," he said with no small amount of pride.

"How?"

He shrugged helplessly then, a look that she found unexpectedly adorable.

"Maybe more will return to me. Like I said, all that I know of the missing section is through tales and folklore."

"Like the phoenix, from the ashes," she told him, wide-eyed. "Mute existence that was given life again. How could this happen?"

"More ignorant people will call you a prophet, a philosopher. But as Rick O'Connell says, 'I'll simply take my chance with you.'," he told her with a grin. "Maybe Allah pities us, and allows his little beings on earth a glimpse of all that we have savoured before."

"Savoured?" She snorted.

He waved it away, digging into his bag, taking out suspicious looking bits of dried fruit and handing them to her.

"It is time for breakfast," he declared.

"Sure, thank you," she sighed as she chewed the dried bits of fruit. "Anyway, not many have the honours of pronouncing that they consume breakfast atop a horse."

Ardeth laughed, a full-bodied emission of sound that warmed her. It seemed utterly fruitless to deny the strong attraction that she felt for him, but to admit that there might lie something else beneath plain attraction was dangerous ground. There was easy banter between them, neither willing to put sure words to describe the change in their relationship yet they had shared much more in days than people who have been together for years -

"Drink," he motioned to her refilled water skin. "Dehydration comes very easily without one realising."

She nodded, moved by the concern he showed, before looking upwards.

"Hamunaptra lies just beyond this mountain pass, Alexandra."

Was that a shiver that she felt creep up her spine?

"Only minutes now."

They cleared the mountain pass in silence, through the crevices of jagged and magnificent reddish rock that was wide enough to allow horses and their riders through; heavily eroded wadis and their imposing shadows framed their diminutive sizes, dwarfing all effortlessly.

"So where is Hamunaptra?" Alex was bewildered at the mounds of sands that stood before her as they emerged into the sunlight again; the landscape had not looked very different from all that had seen in the past 2 days.

"You are looking and stepping on part of the city of the dead," he informed her.

**********  
Egypt, ca. 1279 B.C

Nefertiri was back in the confines of the palace, barely talking, barely meeting anyone, defying even the summons of the Viceroy, Enheduana-Rai noted, making her way softly to her own chambers. Yet in the time of political uncertainty, the many questions that one wanted to ask were seldom answered.

The curtains were parted and she found him standing partially hidden by the gossamer veils of cloths that billowed in the wind, surrounding his magnificent form, revelling that he had freely declared himself hers.

Aretas turned at her approach, face dark with a mixture of passion and a trepidation that she had never seen before, reclining onto the floor as their bodies moulded together with desire borne of agitation.

_Rai, my love,_ he gasped out as she touched him tenderly, his hands fingering her body.

_Surely I would not awaken from this dream, Aretas!_

But his lips had not lingered on hers for long when the deafening noise of a shattering door under the force of many arms broke them apart. Before anything registered clearly, Aretas had been taken up roughly by several guards of the Viceroy, his arms forced behind him.

Sahure entered then, tall and austere, his face hard, and in his hands, he held a royal decree.

There seems a growing inclination of the women of the harem who have Medjai lovers, will you not agree with me? He tilted up the chin of Enheduana-Rai mock-affectionately, stroking a finger down her cheek, before pushing her shoulders roughly down until she kneeled before him.

"You betray the royal crown, Medjai," he turned on Aretas then, with fury, drawing his own sword, nicking the side of Aretas, not hard enough to kill, yet forceful enough to wound.

"Have I not given you and your friends ample warning? And now your captain was the last to fall under my command," Sahure continued, pleased at the look of great shock, disbelief that filled Aretas' features, that melted into great grief following the callous manner in which Djosyn's death was broken to him."You thought to escape me by bringing Nefertiri back to the Medjai camp, did you not? She is now brought back here. And she watched my blade fell on his neck."

The Viceroy's words went straight to the point, steering clear of personal coquetry, made to banish all apparent niceties into the realm of nothingness.

There was a black fury, a deep rage that was welling within, which threatened to burst out of his chest, rising in the mouth, yet it was forcibly swallowed back down and contained in the throat, bubbling and boiling as he and Enheduana-Rai were dragged away.

They were brought out to the public square, where the morbidly curious had gathered and were still gathering; young and old stood transfixed, the churning and flow of people guaranteeing the gradual formation of a riotous mob. The square opened on to a broad canal lying full and sparkling in the sunshine, the great waterway that told many of the splendour and might of Egypt.

"Behold, the traitors of Egypt!" 

The messenger shouted to the mob that cheered loudly in response.

Aretas swallowed hard again when he saw the remaining warrior-scribes who were brought out to join him.

"Death to them!"

The Viceroy had entered the arena grandly, garbed splendidly in his royal golden and blue robes, the very same that Ramses had worn on numerously occasions, and at his entrance a dramatic silence ensued.

"The people have spoken!" Sahure declared triumphantly, his brazenness both loathed and loved by many.

She thought she saw Nefertiri from the corner of her eye, standing at a corner unmoving, fist clenched. The soldiers had released her, at Sahure's orders, she realised dazedly; only the Medjai were bound, and made to lie on their backs on the elevated and jagged rocks that Ramses had used for past executions.

But the soldiers had not drawn their swords, instead, multiple vials of effervescent and incandescent crimson seemed to materialise from their hands, and the crowd murmured at the beauty of the vile liquids that, appearing tinted red as they caught the sun's rays, and becoming a muted orange when caught in shadow.

Enheduana-Rai gasped, the orange liquid was a newly administered drug that she herself had never seen before in her experience with poisons, mostly that of snakes, its potency still unknown to her.

She saw the slight motion of Sahure's lips before his command was heard, as if from a distance, the noise in her ears too loud to ignore. The unpleasant impulse that sullied the air around her fettered her, just as Aretas' strength and freedom were now fettered.

With swift hands the soldiers pulled up the heads of their Medjai prisoners and with a tight pinch of the nose, emptied the full contents of the vials down their throats; they gagged but spat out nothing with their tilted heads as the drug rushed madly down the vital linkways of the body, filling, consuming, rotting.

"Behold!" Sahure commanded. "Your ruler of Egypt is fair and just. They die because they disobeyed the royal court. But they will be granted burial prayers and rites in Hamunaptra! Hamunaptra -the traditional burial place of honour of the Medjai still stands! Their souls will live on in the underworld!"

The crowd had fallen silent as the fallen Medjai were dragged away after the exit of the Viceroy, silently followed by two women from opposite sides of the square.

*******************  
Because no battle is ever wonthey are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.  
-William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Present day Egypt

"Ardeth, you told me that Imhotep was raised from the dead, and he brought with him the plagues?"

He nodded in affirmation.

"And an earthquake shook Hamunaptra?"

A second nod.

"But that is of no consequence. Hamunaptra collapsed, the pile of rubble that was excavated out by Anck-su-namun's reincarnation weeks ago."

"Yes, I know," she said a little impatiently, dismounting, where their horses had stopped, running to the main excavation site. "But look at this." She pointed to a few irregularities found in the mess that was now Hamunaptra, rock protrusions that were something more than fallen pillars.

Merciful Allah, he had never noticed, the sharp protrusions that were created when the earthquake that released the undead Imhotep happened, too sharp and finely cut to be mere rockfall, yet too squarish to be supporting pillars, that crisscrossed each other, obscuring a dark gaping hole downwards.

"What are those?" She asked, brow furrowed in concentration.

Ardeth had dismounted after her, and they both stood at the edge of a slope that was deceptively deeper than it looked

"Hamunaptra is famed for so many things, the place where all things associated with death and the Afterlife are taken into, but it is a city of the dead, a city just like Thebes, only of darkness, and sometimes, a city of evil, complete with treasure stores, with secret passageways and labyrinths few know about. Unfortunately it yields no secrets."

Alex looked disappointed, and started to turn away before his hand, tingling with memories of present and past, stood before her.

"But even the guardians of the Pharaohs have never noticed these protrusions before."

"And?"

"I think you might have just pointed out an entrance that leads deep down somewhere."

**********  
Egypt, c.a 1279 B.C

Hamunaptra was deathly silent by night; its only sign of life were the low moans and groans that they heard as they approached the funeral hall. Fettered and already weak, the fallen Medjai were laid on their backs, bound loosely, as they waited for death to claim them.

The delay of a day, the time that they had wasted hastening their way to the city of the dead had only increased her fear and anxiety that threatened to choke her; all she hoped was to see him before his breath left him.

"Nefertiri, he barely lives; how can I not hope to save him?" She cried out woefully as she ran to him, thankful for the slight heave in his chest. "But I will not watch him die and do nothing! And the journey back to the palace is too arduous for him."

The queen was looking upwards, in contemplation.

"But the rest of the Medjai?"

"We cannot bring them all. Cut him loose. Now follow me," was her single command. "We will hoist him and carry him."

They stole past the darkened passageways built into and underneath the city of the dead, arms straining with the effort of their very precious load, stopping to rest every few moments against the blackened walls, as Enheduana-Rai silently ran a gentle hand along the side of his face, as if her bare hands contained the power to heal instantaneously.

Aretas was caught in a delirium, suspended between the underworld and earth, yielding to the effect of the poison that tore out his arteries. The pain threatened to dissipate everything, his eyes sometimes squeezed shut, sometimes rolled backwards, sometimes opening wide, struggling to rekindle the contours and shapes of all that the normal body would be able to perceive as he was carried past.

Nefertiri led them towards a seemingly dead end, the wall thick and rough, ghoulish, and the bile that arose in Enheduana-Rai was deep and fearful, thinking that the queen had led them into a trap, expecting more outpourings of Egyptian soldiers.

But the queen stepped aside, and with a fluid motion released a lever, her action causing the heavy wall to slide open, a wall that was in fact, a door that opened up into a labyrinth.

"I am familiar with the bowels of Hamunaptra, Rai," the queen smiled slightly. "You were afraid; I saw that fear in your face. You watched and saved me when I lost my child. Now I will not betray you to the very soldiers whom I loathe myself."

The corridor that they found themselves in was even narrower and shorter than the one that they had just run through, tapering off into a distance just as their awareness was starting to taper off, lulled into a tiredness and light-weightedness caused by the stale, musty air. Yet things of long ago imprinted seemed to renew themselves, along with old forgotten feelings.

Enheduana-Rai looked at Aretas' hands and the strain that the poison had made on his body -light blue veins that snaked and bulged with the effort, slowly turning a hideous purple over the olive skin of his, their weak pulse as the sign of ebbing life nonetheless served as her assurance. 

She did not know how long they carried him further; all that she knew was that her eyes were trained on his paleness and breathlessness, until they reached an empty chamber, in which a hard slab of rock rose from the middle, wide and large enough to accommodate his body.

"Imhotep's private chamber", she heard Nefertiri say softly. "So long ago, from the time he was a youth, apprenticed to another high priest."

"But how did you...?"

She bit back her question, not wanting to infringe any further on the queen's good will.

"Surely you know, Rai, that I am no immortal being descended from the gods," Nefertiri sighed. "I am a woman, just as you are, with real feelings and I share your grief more than you realise, because I also saw Djosyn die in front of my eyes. Death humbles even the greatest of all kings and the most beautiful of women. As a princess of the royal court, I was granted access to many places."

"Let us lift him," Enheduana-Rai interrupted urgently. Their combined strength was already failing, the near lifeless body placed atop the stone slab as gently as they could.

But Nefertiri was caught in her own memories; they streamed freely, bouncing off the bare walls that they were soon inundated; at their touch, the walls were unhesitatingly repainted and re-coloured just as she saw them the way they once were.

"But as a young girl whose cup of curiosity was too full to contain, I followed the young Imhotep, wide-eyed and besotted with him, and found this chamber that he always entered as an apprentice."

Enheduana-Rai glanced at her then, as if she measured the words of the queen carefully, her many thoughts still unspoken.

"This is all I can give you - the few remaining ointments that I pray will be of use to you."

"I thank you, my queen," she replied with gratitude, before turning to examine the various containers and vases.

"These unguents will not expel the poison, even though it is a slow acting one," she said grimly, before lifting her gown to remove Aretas' own dagger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say about poisoning as part of a defence of this story? That modern science is very skeptical and has spoiled many a good story.
> 
> It may be said, however, that most of the stories of wonderful secret poisons are quite as incredible as that of the magical mirror: Poisons whose action could be timed to a nicety; poisons whose evil influence would be exerted not immediately, but after months or even years; poisons that left no trace; all these are popular traditions but with no substantiation in veridical history and used to mythic proportions. But we also know that toxins are sneaky things that do remain, even after years of application.
> 
> The Ebers Papyrus written by the Egyptians is one of the oldest medical documents available, dated about 1550 BC, it reveals many customs, traditions and practices of the ancient Egyptian doctors, describing over 800 recipes, many containing recognizable and identified poisons-for example, hemlock, aconite, opium and some of the toxic heavy metals such as lead and antimony. Some of the pharaohs are known to have experimented with poisons, perhaps for practical matters of government and State.


	25. Counterpoint: part II

Present day Egypt, the outskirts of Hamunaptra

"Oh my god, Rick!" Evelyn O'Connell hissed and sat up straight, disoriented by the number of plants that surrounded them, accidentally kicking the remains of the wood, ashes and their dinner.

Her husband opened his eyes halfway, sleepily rubbing his face, the slow languor of the earthy air brushing them both.

"Yeah, honey?"

"Oh Rick, your reflexes are slowing. We overslept!"

"We what?!"

"Overslept. The sun is high above our heads! I'm guessing it's past noon."

"It is strange, as if time has stopped in this oasis." He observed.

"We have to hurry!"

"Time and tide waits for no man huh?" He grinned.

"Oh do be serious! Hamunaptra awaits."

"You know honey, I can never muster up the same enthusiasm you have for that damned city, and I'm not even trying."

His wife stood up and with a determination, stuck her arms under his own, and with a leg on his backside, hauled him up successfully.

He turned to her, bewildered.

"Where did you learn that?"

"My husband taught me that," she replied smugly. She gathered their belongings, strapped on her gun and dagger and saw Rick standing motionless, looking at her quizzically.

"Honey, I only taught you head-butting and a few gun tricks, not gymnastics."

"Oh well, I saw you do it before, to Beni." She confessed lightly.

He looked at her in surprise; there was always something about his wife that never failed to amuse him.

"A fast and keen learner," he teased and nodded, springing into action then and saddled their horses. "Let's be on our way. I wouldn't want to be without my flexible and malleable wife when combating forces unseen."

******************  
Present day Egypt, Hamunaptra

She stepped gingerly into the small crevice and into pitch darkness, pushing several life-sized obstructions out of the way, lowering herself into a cavernous opening that was bigger than she had expected, running her fingers reverently over the intricate carvings in the partially collapsed stone wall.

A torch was lit behind her, and she heard the lightness of his footsteps hit the ground before she saw him, the black phantom that blended perfectly with the surrounding darkness, the planes of his face harsh by firelight, head held high supported by the strong neck that rose from the open collar of his shirt, peering sharply into the distance.

"The air is stale," he sniffed delicately, not wanting to displace the dust that had collected around the sharp edges of the fallen artefacts.

She nodded mutely, the need for words suddenly removed from both of them, the blanketing and weighted silence cloaking them heavily.

They stumbled less and less as they penetrated the deep bowels of the city, their moves more in sync with one another's, adroitly avoiding the lingering obstructions as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, casting but single glances to their sides as they walked seemingly endlessly.

"So it seems that Hamunaptra was not completely ravaged, as we all assumed," Ardeth murmured in wonder, "its underground passages are still intact."

The uneasiness that grew on her was not unfelt, a superficial tingle against her skin that grew gradually to envelope the senses, until she breathed shortly.

"Ardeth, something is not right," she bit out, not able to exactly articulate the sways of emotions that had assaulted her.

"Things like these seldom are," he gritted out, wincing in pain when his foot struck a large protruding rock that rose out smoothly from nowhere. 

Lowering the torch that he carried upright, the light allowing him closer inspection of the area they were passing through, which he realised with no great amount of trembling and excitement, was an area that had been restricted to high priests and their apprentices - the large slab of stone that was used to lay bodies down, the area where the rack of assorted potions and spells were laid, now empty and gaping; their only adornment were the fragments of rocks and boulders that littered the place. There was nonetheless a deep-seated familiarity and a great misgiving that assailed him, feelings that he had not yet put down.

"Alexandra," he motioned with his other hand.

She turned immediately to what he was inspecting, the world around her undergoing a dreamlike alienation at the stone slab and the intact chamber that materialised before them.

"The High priest's chamber," his voice was otherworldly in the gloom and somewhat muffled in the strange air that permeated their surroundings, tinged with a quiver of excitement and fear that she had never heard before.

"We are getting close," she whispered, feeling the words slip out, not knowing what had prompted that.

"To the scrolls?"

"I guess." She put up a hand to stop the question forming on his mouth. "Don't ask me how I know that."

They continued to pass similar chambers like those that they had seen, the number of stone slabs increasing, until they entered a space that opened up at the end of the row of chambers, originally wide but now cluttered with remnant of stone blocks, pillars and more unmarked stone slabs.

"I did not think that there were so many chambers that the high priests had," he admitted. Alex shrugged, a certain stone slab that they passed looked unnaturally reflective under the firelight.

"Ardeth!"

"The stone slabs are tombs, Alexandra." 

He peered closely at some slabs that had been broken by the shock when the main complex collapsed, ancient linen wrappings and broken mummified skeletons strewn about, strangely drawn to the slabs; the unspoken magnetic pull to them too strong too resist.

"Look at that one. Most of the sarcophagi are unmarked. This one looks different - there are carvings on it. Maybe that accounts for that glint we see." She brought his hand that carried the torch closer.

Ardeth felt the hair on the back of his neck and arms stand.

_I swear to you that there are things more divine which we do not know of, more beautiful than words can tell, my love._

"Did you hear that?" He turned wild-eyed, searching for that voice that he heard.

She nodded her head slowly, puzzled.

"I do not know what is happening, Ardeth."

With great effort they both lifted the stone cover, and in the wake of the resounding groan of the moving rock, they gazed down on a mummy, curiously wrapped, its front looking as if something was wrapped underneath it.

"I think we are looking at something very significant."

Alex paused to dig in her bag for something, finally pulling out a pair of cotton gloves and slipped them on deftly.

"You brought those?" Ardeth asked in surprise.

She grinned, face flushed and heady with excitement.

"I did tell you and the O'Connells about my theory didn't I? That the scrolls might have been poisoned? That the lethalness of poison may last for a long time if undisturbed? It may be a wrong conclusion, or even a wrong thought process that led to that wrong conclusion," her breaths came in short puffs, "But there is always room for errors."

"No prophetic statements are allowed."

She raised an eyebrow at yet another cryptic statement that he seemed to relish making from time to time, before turning around to face all that lay before her.

"I meant that," he insisted. "One cannot afford to be careless around Hamunaptra at all. It is a place where words and actions have greater power than any other place."

"This one looks ripe for the picking," she murmured, bending over to touch the disintegrating wrappings. The ancient linen looked surprisingly taut in certain areas, but nevertheless never withstood the erosive nature of time, falling away easily as she gently tugged at them, revealing the elegantly carved letterings.

_Taprus paräsum as'saat tiïë täsuut ezzütu naqam bëlütu im atakkal  
taprus paräsum ïterub näqiru nïrubillik úmut paqädum uptanarrás._

_May the scrolls that brought you death now bring you remembrance as they corrupt all those who touch you, may you lay dormant but suspended, in peace until we meet again._

"What was that?" There was a wild gleam in his eyes, and her turned his head frantically in the darkness, as if expecting a pounce from a wild animal crouching in secret.

"I did not hear anything Ardeth," she looked at him concernedly, following his line of vision, and holding him by the shoulders when he swayed dizzily.

"What is that before you? Or who?" He demanded abruptly, harshly, the involuntary raise in pitch making her take a step back from him, fear spreading over her face.

"I am sorry," he confessed a moment later as they continued staring as one another, neither moving, neither saying a word, barely breathing. "I do not have any scholarly instincts within me."

"Did I talk too insensitively? I am drawn to it," she replied simply. "You can call it human instinct, and not scholarly instinct as it may be famously labelled. Something unexplainable, just the same way when you discover a blade pressed to your belly and you react intuitively by turning on your attacker. I am guided by that same instinct, no different."

He gave her a small motion to carry on, pacing whatever space permitted him to do so, the unease and cries rising within.

The unwrapping was done quickly, but the bare state of the blackened skeleton revealed all that Alex had and wanted to see. She gently removed the stray fragments of bones that surrounded the scrolls, remarkably preserved in their sheen, their lightweight in her hands somewhat recognisable, as though she had always known that the scrolls and her were inseparable.

"Dear god, this is Bembridge's greatest dream fulfilled," she busied herself, brushing her gloves over the scrolls almost reverently. Stray pieces of sharp rocks however, had caused her to stumble and slip backwards, Ardeth's hand that had reached out to steady her a second too late. Alex found herself in a seated position on the ground, wincing at the sting of the sharp rocks that prodded at her hands and at her posterior.

Ardeth's laugh was cut short when his eyes caught and held the main skeleton that lay under the scrolls, lured and enticed by the skull and the connecting bones of the body, greyed and spotted black with age, feeling the sudden urge to fall unconscious.

Two women hovered over him, their eyes worried, faces drawn and pale, one of them he recognised as Alexandra, the other as Evy, who held cloths filled with water over him, the droplets of which he fought to catch desperately, the other who held a knife over him.

Alex was poring over the scrolls, translating them as she read, realising that it was indeed the record of the infamous Passover, the night where so many of Egypt's firstborns breathed their last.

But a noise from the rear end of the tunnel pulled him out of the hands of memory, and he squinted to see two approaching figures holding fiery torches, stumbling towards them in a comic fashion.

"Ardeth!"

"Dr. Khalan!"

The unnatural buzz and stillness of the labyrinth were chased away by their cheery voices, and Evy made her way excitedly over to Alex, eyes widening, stumbling over stray rocks.

"Behold, Bembridge's champion," she grinned.

"How did you find us?"

"We saw your horses, and walked around a bit, before we saw some footprints that led down this way," Evy shrugged.

"You know Evy, I feel as if there is something that I still don't know," Alex said, standing up with great frustration. "As if we are walking this path to Hamunaptra, and we find the very object that we are looking for, and while I am thrilled, there are missing pictures I can't seem to place my finger on, that we are only living on incomplete knowledge, that" she stumbled a bit, "that things are so anti-climactic."

"This is it," Evy stated matter-of-factly, also slightly disappointed at the seeming lack of daredevil action that had accompanied them on every trip.

"It is a nice change, isn't it?" Rick added dryly. "That we finally managed to get into Hamunaptra, and you get what you want, all without the fuss of saving the world, and saving our own hearts in the process? Hey, we haven't been this clean in such expeditions. Ever."

Ardeth smiled briefly.

"O'Connell is right. But so is Alexandra. There is something more, but I do not know what."

"Like we are such puppets, the way we seem to be led around without fully knowing and understanding, without having a clear picture of everything." Alex sighed. "What about the dreams ...the-"

"What dreams?" Rick asked curiously.

"Some things, O'Connell, we just cannot explain ourselves," Ardeth interrupted.

"You tell me," he muttered back. "I still carry the scratches that the scorpion-thing made."

"We have, essentially found what is needed. No mummy curses, no invocations, thank god. So shouldn't we be on our way out?" Evy called out.

"Wait." Alex held up a hand. "Wouldn't anyone want to see what lies deeper?"

The other three looked at each other.

"No." 

It was a collective answer, said with great affirmation.

The bright sunlight kissed them welcome as they emerged, mounting their horses, as they rode away, spirited, with a newfound strength from the scene of demolition. They rode past the intensely memorable oasis, and back into the wilderness of rock, sand and unchanging landscape that stretched up to the edge of Cairo itself.

But by dusk, there was a persistent lethargy that hung over Alex that the rest did not seem to feel; exhilarated instead that they had come away easily. The scrolls that were to precious to be placed in her bag were held tightly in her gloved hands and had seemed to grow heavier with each gallop, the growing uncoordination of her senses and limbs creeping upon her.

"We rest here," Ardeth announced, dismounting with the O'Connells, turning his gaze to Alex, immediately alarmed by her unfocused eyes and unusual waxen complexion.

"Alexandra, you are more than tired," Evy observed worriedly.

"It's probably just rest and sleep that will make me as sprightly as you all," she murmured indistinctly, the blood roaring through her ears, their voices far away.

Ardeth had helped her down from the horse, and she slumped against him a bit, her tired hands finally dropping the scrolls onto the ground, and to their greatest horror, saw the significant tear on the glove and the blood had escaped them all.

"Oh my god. I never knew."

"No one did, not even her. It must have torn when she fell onto the rocks," Ardeth felt his heart constricting. Allah help us all, he thought, face tortured by pain, panic stricken that her gloves had torn without any of them realising it.

"Ardeth, we can't stop now," Rick put in. "We are just a few hours' ride from our Cairo house. This desert will kill her."

Rick O'Connell was right, he acknowledged, his knowledge of poisons wide enough to recognise the ruthlessness of the environment that now closeted them. He trembled as he held her to him, her eyes closing, dropping fast into delirium. He nodded and shakily lifted her on his horse before hoisting himself up again, leaving Evy and O'Connell to transport the scrolls as they wished; the burden that had become suddenly so clear was the woman who lay dying in his arms and not the ancient papyrus.

Nothing less than a seizure, the extraordinary expansion of an inner self that rose to meet the physicality and carnality of flesh, strangely passionate and hallucinatory, turning the shivering into vision.

His arms around her triggered off the ancient memories once again; they splayed colourfully around them, cloaking them with swirls in the night, bursting like fireworks, this time, more ominously, they also proclaimed death if she was not saved.

He had died the last time, the 'hows' and the 'whys' - reasons that were still shady to him. But he swore on his very heartbeat that she would not.

********************  
Hamunaptra, c.a 1279 B.C

"What are you doing, Rai?" The queen's shocked expression and restraining hand around hers made her smile ironically.

"Aretas once asked me that, when I held a dagger against him. Then he gave me his own dagger much later, because he feared for me. Will I kill a man whom I love to remove all the pain that he is now feeling? I tell you now that I have thought of it. But I am a healer, and I try to save first."

"Enough blood has been shed," Nefertiri gritted her teeth.

"I will bleed him now, Nefertiri," Rai replied tersely, "to save his life. Pungent ointments cannot fight against what eats him inside. These must be gone, and his blood has to be shed. It has to be shed now, because of the evil that has spread through the Egyptian court!" Her voice was now raised, as she teetered at the end of her own self-control.

Enheduana-Rai held the dagger in a firm grip, watching Aretas' eyes flit open and then close, catching the gleam of the blade in the slits.

She made the first incision near his collarbone, stray tears that diluted the dark red blood seeping out, pausing in between the movements of the blade to press her lips to his tenderly.

_Your willingness to see me as a woman, not as a possession, but a complete person who has tales of her own to tell, of secrets of foreign lands that Egypt has no knowledge about will be then revealed to you because you chose to be patient with me, and because you took the time to unravel a person for who she is. And now am I to lose a treasure, Aretas?_

The knife continued its movement on the other side of his neck, as she gathered him to her, before standing up.

"Rai.."

"Do you think the sight of his broken body pleases me? It haunts me, that blood that I draw from him!" 

She covered her face with bloodied hands, shaking with agony, before straightening her shoulders and kneeling by his side once more. Her head dropped even lower, so that the soft scent of her hair wafted towards him as her chest heaved with a heavy, frightened, inarticulate sorrow, fingers twitching in his.

Nefertiri kept silent, the horrific sight of the other two bodies bathed in blood too reminiscent of Djosyn's brokenness.

"How much are you drawing from him?" She asked the healer instead, placing her hope in the skills that Enheduana-Rai possessed.

"We do this throughout the night, at certain periods, until his blood no longer run black," was her curt reply.

"Sit with me," the queen offered, draw your comfort by knowing that I have also suffered as much as you are suffering now.

It was a nightlong vigil that Nefertiri also kept for Aretas, her own eyes drawn out from the sleeplessness of the past days, grief that spilled out from the sides of her eyes as she looked at the wounded Medjai, someone else's lover and companion, suffering longer and slower than the way Djosyn had.

She held a pot of water nearby, dripping it down his lips when he grew paler, or when he moaned in more pain from the incisions that Rai was doing.

Djosyn's end had come as a shock, but the pain of watching Rai's helplessness as she fought against the poison that crept through Aretas' body was starker; it was surely the end for him too. Hollowed women, she thought, women who had love beaten out of them to death's other kingdom, lips that only formed prayers not upwards to the gods, but only to broken stones.

Enheduana-Rai was once again bent over her motionless lover, with a face that never dried as she worked, holding his very own dagger in front of his neck, desperately bleeding acupoints in his throat, the man who was filled with cuts barely opening his eyes with the additional pain.

"My love, forgive me for the pain that the cuts I make. Return to me, Aretas, Enheduana-Rai needs you desperately."

The words were familiar to her; she had told him so the first night they had spent together, as their bodies had embraced in violent writhing, quaking lips pressed together as the world had fallen away again and again.

Miraculously, his eyes cleared, as if he had been granted a moment of clarity and wholeness, and he opened his mouth to speak.

"Aretas!" She clutched the sides of his face, her thumbs gently wiping his flowing blood away, seeing the brief smile that curled his lips and the fading twinkle in his eyes. "The sad and sorry plight will pass you by!"

"No," he shook his head. "I tire, Rai, I cannot fight anymore. I am truly the last of the Medjai?" 

Tears seeped past his tired eyes, unwilling to believe, that even at the point of death, that they had so easily been vanquished.

"Hear me, Aretas! This will bring you joy."

The queen stepped forward, commanding his flailing attention. 

"Djosyn had relocated Medjai partially before, she stumbled over the words, the anguish still fresh, Djosyn had taken care of some of them before he died. The Viceroy knows nothing of this secret location. Young boys, and their mothers stay there. Take heart! The Medjai will grow strong again!"

"Did you hear that, my love?" Another voice, soft, gentle, wafted towards him. "Triumph can also come quietly, and at the point when you thought all was lost."

His hand moved weakly to cover hers, their blood, sweat and tears meshing as one, already turning into a reminiscence, already eternalising the unearthly sadness.

"Do not weep my love!" He commanded weakly. "I swear to you that there are things more divine which we do not know of, more beautiful than words can tell, my love. I may go for now, and by the gods, I will return to you."

His eyes closed, the gentle heaving of his chest stopped, the flitting of the wounded spirit and soul now only too free to take flight as Horus had always intended.

But the stars are not wanted now, not when his life had left her; the bliss that had been stored up in her and him was now to be poured away, the joy to be dismantled and crushed; she was sure that all would have been forgiven should his body rise once again from the dead, but it was all in vain. Her Aretas, dead, and unresponsive, in her arms.

She wept noisily then, crying over his body.

Beauty, midnight, and the idyllic vision of starting a new life away from the palace died with him, the bittersweet and fierce remembrance of their nights together returning to her, only now that it put her in chains.

It was her tears that formed a cocoon around him, forming his ephemeral grave before his body was returned to the dust and the soil of the Nile, not knowing how long she lay on her knees, clutching his body, imagining that he still had life that flowed through his heart, thinking that he might once again bestow that heady, desirous glance at her, that his hand might move to lock her in a powerful embrace, that his lips might claim hers for his.

Nefertiri watched the couple with great sorrow, the clutter and mess of blood, tears and carelessly strewn strips of cloths, unable to absorb the enormity and intensity of it all, sinking to her knees next to Enheduana-Rai herself, weeping with her.

But it was Rai, and only her, the mind that refused to let go, her lips that were still pressed against his, her arms that willed his arms to move around her again, her eyes that begged him to return to her. Not a kiss, not a thought, nor a look that was to be lost even in the moments after he died, the gentle breezes of delusion blowing around her, momentary, leaving as soon as they swirled around her, shifting sands, skeletons and dryness remaining in their wake.

_O gods,_ she cried out, could she have not clasped him tighter; the grains of golden sands that escaped her palms; she had only sipped the liquor that was him, before he was taken from her.

_Farewell Aretas!_ She bade him disconsolately, the chant and the prayers falling from her lips like running water that had not the capacity to bring life back. May you be welcomed with the open arms into the heavenly realms of the gods.

Dimly she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, and looking up, she saw Nefertiri, the queen who was also so acquainted with sorrow that she knew a kindred spirit had touched her.


	26. To Manifest Me Rightly

My heart foreboded this thy dreadful sentence, and to this tomb that shuts on thee its portal, I crept unseen by mortal. Here from all where none can more behold us, clasped in thy arms I resolved to perish.  
-Aida, Giuseppe Verdi

Ancient Egypt, Hamunaptra

His body was lovingly washed, the insides removed, free of the blood, though the ugly scars and cuts had remained, the skin that showed the work of the poison more discoloured in death than in life, the slightly distended corpse a distorted appearance of the Aretas she had known.

"We need to bring him back -to the burial chamber of the Medjai," a soft voice cut thickly through her. "Surely you will want him to remain here with dignity."

"I do, Nefertiri. But my eyes are hollowed out with crying, and the heart feels as if it has bled until it can bleed no more. I cannot think beyond this."

Enheduana-Rai was haggard with the dark circles under her eyes and the tangled, matted hair which spoke volumes more than words, unfolded the strips of linen that she had been holding tightly in her hands, lightly fingering the already waxen and paling skin that had been hurriedly anointed with oils.

"No beloved should ever be made to suffer this, Rai, no beloved should play the healer and the hurried embalmer after witnessing the sight of him dying," the queen's empathy was palpable.

Her bitterness was heart wrenching; the mix of grief that returned in waves too unwelcome in the wake of his death; she was petulant in the unfairness that had slapped her harshly, and silent thanked the queen for her patient understanding.

The linen that she started tightly binding him with was as smooth and hard as her rapid motions, the white sheen of the cloth rapidly folded over the bruised body and over the precious scrolls that he had fought and died for, erasing identity, bestowing anonymity that all had in death.

There was a certain detachment that Nefertiri watched - the same appearance that Imhotep had after his execution and curse was now given to Aretas, swathed in this very same cloth, so white and so heartless.

But a voice speaking quietly at her side washed the image of Imhotep out, returning to the more painful present from a muted past.

"I have Aretas' scrolls," Rai said flatly. "His legacy, the Medjai's legacy will live on, to those who find these. These will lie with him, and they are coated with the very same poison that was used to kill him."

"Rai, the court holds no power over you; the decision of burying a loved one should never be dictated by anyone else. Sahure thinks that the scrolls die with the Medjai, but by the twist of the gods you will be the one who determines that, not him," the queen said gently.

The other woman nodded faintly; only the most sparse words carefully chosen and meted out in sensitivity were needed and having received such so graciously made her tremble more.

With the slightest of voices she placed a hand over the mummified torso, and whispered out to the heavens in the another ancient tongue that few had heard her speak, a sound that was unfamiliar yet chilling to Nerfertiri's ears, and without a doubt she sensed it to be a curse or a prayer, which brought an uncertainty and foreboding that fell upon the surrounding walls, ricocheting back and forth until silence entered back gratefully when Enheduana-Rai's lament was finally finished.

_Humiliated then, honoured now, you died in tragedy, now reign in triumph and freedom._

_May no god decide your fate as men have cruelly done for you Aretas._

_May you feed on all that is pleasurable from now, may no one, no one touch you ever and not be burned, may the scrolls that brought you death now bring you remembrance as they corrupt all those who touch you, may you lay dormant but suspended, in peace until we meet again._

Her hands moved of their own accord, stroking the linens down the last time, her hands tracing the outline of him and the precious commodity that cloth hid.

_My love, the legacy you carry with you is too precious, way above that of the rites that your enemies will perform._

***********  
Egypt, 1931

She was pale, her chest rising lesser and lesser with each breath that she took, on the brink of unconsciousness. His grip on her tightened as he spurred his horse onward, the beating of the hooves on the ground a comfort that it brought him closer to his destination, closer to life.

There existed a block in his head; he felt it, unmoving and persistent, obstinately obscuring the flow of recent memory. As if an invisible hand had reached into his head, playfully shuffled the memories around, until he saw them impressionistically - The elders who had smiled at him as he ran carefree during his youth, until the burden of leadership fell upon him, the awkward teen who watched foreign operas, the man who had to learn to be aloof standing in front of all those whom he commanded, the children of others who looked up at him in awe, and the voice of his mother reciting poetry to him as he fell asleep at night.

"We don't know what poison it is!" Evy panted as they rode paces behind Ardeth. "Most ancient Egyptian poisons work the same way - trembling, dilated eyes, weak heartbeat, and, yes, eventually, death."

The horse that raced ahead in front of them seemed to ride away from hell's fiery hole, its hooves barely grazing the hard ground, and in the distance he saw the numerous spirals and the charming, uneven flat tops of the buildings of Cairo, the presence of civilisation never more welcomed.

Balls of fires - or were they lamps of the entertainers - were already lit, was it evening already? Unaware of the passing of time, it was her that he had become, her half-conscious state had become his, as if he was dying once more through her.

In a blur he saw Rick O'Connell hunched over his horse, riding as determinedly as he was, veering off onto a slight path well trodden, easily overlooked by the casual traveller.

"Short cut." He cocked a brow easily and motioned for all of them to follow. "Sweetie," as his wife rode behind him, "I did tell you this little pathway would be useful some day. And you actually mentioned that you wanted it sealed up?"

"Save your smirks for later honey," she grinned slightly, turning around to glance at the remaining horse and its riders; they painted a peculiar picture - a figure clad in black flowing robes that stepped out of another era holding his prize limp in his arms, swift as the sheets of wind that rolled through the city and were gone in a flash.

What was that?

Ardeth had momentarily loosened his grip on Alex, words of the Koran filling his mind. With a silent breath of gratitude to Allah, he tightened his grip on her with renewed vigour - oblivious to her grimace.

"Ardeth?"

"Shh..."

"Life has to be lived," she wheezed slightly, "Death is not surrender, Ardeth, I only surrender if I had refused to be someone of action, who lived a quiet, solitary life of a hermit."

"Do not speak," he commanded her quietly. "So that you may awake again later."

"We have reached?"

"You are a stubborn one, yes, you, the greatest desire of mine. But yes, we have reached. I will carry you into the house now." He announced grimly, before stepping off his horse, his boots landing on the sand and debris with a soft thud, without letting go of his precious cargo in his arms.

She was laid in a darkened room, familiar to her, or so she thought in that haze, voices swarming about, not certain any longer if they belonged to the past or the present.

"The poison had been used again and again," Evy rattled on rapidly, "from the time of Artaxerxes to the time of Egypt's 28th Dynasty. It was a new poison that ancient Egypt had concocted, and reused throughout the ages. A relatively fast acting poison, if I remember correctly, from the fast perusal of Tutankhammun's artefacts, but perhaps degraded and decayed over the years that it only eats the insides slower."

_The vicissitudes of existence will still come by you inwardly, Alexandra, testing your character, proving your heroism and couragenot your accomplishments, not your dissertation that you think the world of now, not anything else. It all comes from within, the deepest part of humanity that has never changed and will never change - that links the ancient man and the modern one._

Was it dear old aunt Cordelia, or was it her professor back in Bembridge, who had said that to her? It was a life that was further away than she had thought; the life in ancient Egypt, although still in fragments, had already exchanged itself for that reality.

They all stood around her; it was quite a comic display really, she thought, with their worried faces hovering, disembodied, sometimes disappearing and appearing after each blink of the eyes, and she fought the urge to laugh aloud, an outrageous full-bodied laugh that she thought might set her free from the strangeness of it all, dispelling the demons that probably hung around her ever since she came to Egypt and met that mysterious and intriguing stranger who vowed that they shared destinies.

She smiled a bit. They were too caught up in their conversation to notice.

She waggled her fingers at them, only to find a large hand hold her own down, its weight comforting and reassuring.

It was like being a child again, she thought, pointing chubby fingers at anything in particular, and watching the faces of adults change as they thought the world of the clever, inquisitive one.

Ardeth's worried face filled her vision again, his features melting into - recognition? But she did not know what he was thinking, could not dredge her memory to bring out the right words.

Time and again it had been recorded in the Medjai annals, yet it had not fallen into place till now.

He sprang into action, drawing his own blade and ran it through the bottom hem of his own robe, slashing a strip of cloth that he used to wrap her afflicted hands, binding the joint at the elbow, as the O'Connells watched in fascination.

Her failing pulse frightened him like no other, not even when he brought devastating news of Medjai soldiers who had died in battle; her imminent death was completely unimaginable; she had become a presence that outshone the faithful sun, filling the gap in his troubled breast so abundantly that she had made him the sure lord of himself once more.

"Ardeth, I'm not too sure if this is a good idea -" O'Connell was saying.

"Ardeth!" Evy's sentiment echoed her husband, her fingers clasping one another, almost certain that he had been possessed.

"For you, Alexandra, this my blood as sacrifice; let it be an action that speaks more than words." At that he cut his own wrist and dripped it down her throat, watching the life giving liquid stain her lips surrealistic red against the unnatural paleness of her skin, wishing that he had a guarantee that his prayers were heard and answered, for her renewal of life. The maroon droplets that flowed from his wrist seemed to diffuse as they touched her flesh, the dark red lightening to a bright red, infusing her paleness with its raw vitality.

She choked at the liquid, but it kept flowing, flowing, a substantial amount had ran past her throat, although there were many stray rivulets that had her mouth could not catch; they flowed as the Nile tributaries did, over her body, staining all red in their determined path. An image, sprang unbidden into her mind - Aretas, looking the same way as she did, bloodied with monstrous cuts over himself, his face distorted in distress and despair.

And then Ardeth replaced his image; the same face superimposed over that of the ancient incarnation and there were no cuts on him, except that he was persistently pressing his wrist to her lips, swaying slightly from the sudden loss of his own blood. And then no more, like a lamp extinguished abruptly, she dropped from all that she saw, straight into darkness and oblivion that opened their arms to welcome her.

"Something happened?" Rick O'Connell queried, after closing the door to their bedroom.

"Something happened. Most definitely," she confirmed. "Just watch their faces. But the questions can come later. I don't think Ardeth wants to leave her side anytime until she wakes up. And heavens, I pray that she will be alright, for his sake too."

"It's been one hell of a week since...well, you know."

They stared at each other in silence, reading the emotions in each other's eyes, letting words go unsaid.

"You know, honey, I did promise you no more of the Egyptian hullabaloo and went back on my word by accepting the position in the museum," Evy started out.

"Uh-huh."

"You know, I'm sort of regretting..."

"Aha! You think we should have gone back to England with the son and Jonathan right?" A mischievous grin formed at the sides of his lips; she loved the way some of his smiles were only found at the corners of his mouth.

"Don't jump me on this Rick!" She slapped his shoulder slightly, shushing him.

"Huh...do go on darling. This is starting to sound interesting. A repentant Evelyn O'Connell is a sight so rare. "

"I know there is a lot more of Nefertiri than what I saw in Ahm Shere. There is the whole of her life that is still buried! I only saw a crucial part of itwhat happens next, what happens before? Perhaps Ardeth opened even more doors to greaterpossibilities when he suggested you did have a part to play in ancient times as well."

"Darling, I...well, wasn't the recent scare enough for our already aging hearts?" He protested.

"Rick, I've known you long enough to see your greater belief in the present things. And I respect and love you so much for it. And this is why I will choose not to pursue anything further. Maybe Nefertiri loved someone else other than Ramses the great king. Maybe she did have a role to play in the great Exodus of the Bible. But," she took a moment to compose her words, mixed feelings overwhelming her.

"Honey, listen to me. Seeing you satisfied and contented will make me likewise. Why did you think I agreed to stay behind in Egypt? Well, other than the reason that I'm stuck to my wife and had no choice at all but to follow her royal highness' wishes," He made a humorous face at her, "I'd like to think that the greatest harm done in whatever you wish to discover will simply mean the unleashing Anubis warriors that of course, Ardeth will take care of them."

She giggled, sounding younger than her years.

"But seriously though," he continued, "If you need, well, if you want to discover more of Nefertiri or even relive her life, my blessings are yours."

"Hmmm? Really?"

"Through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, in past lives or present lives to come, through evil empires, evil priests, strange Medjai people, no death doing us part..." He drawled out in jest.

"Rick," she looked at him in wonder, "I did marry the best of men huh?"

"I'd say maybe our Dr. Khalan will have something to say to that in defence of Ardeth," he raised both brows at her, drawing more giggles.

"But I'm starting to come to terms with this. That maybe the past will stay where it is. In the past. What matters, well, is now, the present and what lies ahead. And I know you also prefer it this way. There is just so much to look ahead to, not behind. It doesn't concern me terribly as it used to. And that is where we will both leave it. There is," She motioned with her hand, "a lot more to come. Who knows, maybe it is better not to know."

He felt a lump rise in his throat - this mutual and healthy self-respect and love still so new and yet still so rewarding to him after all the long years of marriage, knowing that she did this also with the consideration of his feelings and their future.

"So, do you want to go back to England?" She grinned cheekily.

"What? I didn't think...but we just..." He shook his head and stated again. "What about Bembridge and -?"

"Hang Bembridge, well, at least for the moment," she said silkily as her arms went around his neck, pulling his head towards hers.

************

Life can only be understood backwards, but it can only be lived forwards.  
-Søren Kierkegaard

Time never had divisions to mark its passing, only we, the folly of the earth, labour to mark its passage by leaving records, perhaps to satisfy ourselves that we have indeed left our own mark, the only certainty we have in the fluidity of it all, to convince ourselves that we are not merely illusions that come in a flash and fade just as quickly, Alexandra Khalan thought ruefully to herself.

She never quite knew what had transpired in the course of the last few days, only the faint memory of riding on a horse in a hurry back to the O'Connell's residence where she was now, and that Ardeth had never left her side, or so she was told, the moment she fell back into the realm of the conscious.

"You look different," he observed softly as he re-entered her room with silent footsteps, carrying a large jug of precious fresh water that he insisted she drink from throughout the day. "Healthy, and more importantly, alive." The slight waver in his voice was not lost on her, yet the uncertainty had returned to her once more, and she has questioned her own sanity constantly ever since Ardeth had proved himself more than a good dream.

He sat by her bedside, just looking at her, taking his fill before opening his arms, she, falling into them.

"Ardeth."

But his lips had already briefly brushed her cheek, innocently, his shaking hands framing the side of her face before he pulled away. But in that glorious movement lay the promise of a frightfully heavy sensuality, a certain wild sweetness that gave her a dense actuality of a possible physical warmth that would spread if he did not stop.

"Not yet," he smiled.

Characteristically human, she had scoffed all things that she thought was irresistible, until she herself found him so; that intellectual seriousness only a seriousness for the purpose of the intellectual game itself, far too inadequate to explain the power of all that they had experienced.

She realised that the burning interest she had for hieroglyphs was not just one that stemmed from academia; it had become a personal quest, just as it was for Ardeth, to recreate a life that she had never known that she had led outside Bembridge. She ought to have been astounded at this revelation, but perhaps any sense of deep surprise had ceased the moment Ardeth's hand had accidentally brushed hers; bestowing her with a sense of familiarity she did not trust herself to be better acquainted with yet. Cowardice she knew it to be, and to examine what the sudden flashback meant at his touch was too profound a change in thought even for an academic like her, she thought.

Alex was unprepared to face the kaleidoscope of emotions that assailed her upon the point of contact; she was even more unwilling to admit what his touch had awakened in her it was not something she did not enjoy. She would have fallen into his arms, body overcome and heart seduced had she not felt his invisible reservoir of self-control that also pulled her back. Not without knowing what might ensue should more skin come into contact.

"So, talk." 

"Me? What would you have me say?"

"Whatever you wish to say."

She murmured in appreciation, looking at his tattooed hands that were grasping her upper arms, his thumbs circling lazily over the bare skin. Then they fell silent for a while, relishing each other's company.

"I am no prophet," she said after a pause, once more measuring her words.

"And you think I am one?" He challenged back. "I wield a blade better than I can interpret visions. And I ride a horse better than I know about poisons. I barely believe what I did and went through in the past week. And I catch a runaway horse more efficiently than a certain woman I know."

She was startled into laughter by his unexpected jibe, the heaviness that was perched on her shoulders for so long suddenly taking flight.

"I cannot deny everything that passed, because they have taken my emotions with me," she admitted finally, afraid to see his reaction, and yet in looking downwards missed the delight in the flare of his eyes.

A soft knock on the wooden door separated them quickly, he taking his place on the seat that was an appropriate distance from the bed, and she, nonchalantly resting backwards, schooling her features into an unperturbed one.

Evy entered the room then, matronly in the apron that she wore, cheerfully putting a tray of Egyptian snacks on floor rug.

"Dr. Khalan, I am your nurse as long as you need me to be - we are all at you disposal. Ardeth is your bedtime body guard, and Rick is household security. You need not fear at all."

"Indeed, I thank you, complete with Bembridge's seal of approval," she replied with mock-gravity, laughter straining the sides of her face, the sound following in a moment.

"My, in good spirits today are we." She heard Rick O'Connell's voice say dryly from the outside.

Kindred spirits, they seemed to be. She and Evy were seemed very much alike, strong willed, independent, unsatisfied by all they could not change. But the similarity ended there she though -Rick and Evy O'Connell were together. Her future - with or without him, was still being written out.

"I'll be back later, Alex." 

Evy winked exaggeratedly and disappeared outside.

She turned her head to find Ardeth looking at her; it was disconcerting, that stare of his, and in his eyes it seemed as if his soul was ancient, as ancient as the person in her visions, perhaps even eternal.

"Why did you cut your wrist?" It was a bald-faced question, without the mince of words, and he was glad to know that she had not looked appalled, neither had she squirmed in displeasure.

He sighed.

"I..you see, the poison is..." he paused, visibly struggling for words. "It is like a blood curse. I was not able to remember a lot of events from my younger days, the Medjai records as well. But I realised that there were similar curses, and it was the issue of blood that resolved it. The fresh blood that you now have will clean out all that is filthy."

"A truth that insults the intellect of the academic but rescues the ignorant fool? I would have been hard-pressed into believing that, you know."

He shrugged. "The mind must not strive to understand all. Allah's universe is not made as fully comprehensible."

"You did not think twice, Ardeth? Slitting your wrist is quite an impulsive act." 

She did not know what to think, that the sacrifice he made meant a rash, unthinking decision to save her life without giving any regard to the safety of his own, and that it meant this man who had unwittingly slipped under the glacial cover she wore had also won her heart.

"We rode out of Hamunaptra alive. Allah be thanked. I have seen enough death as the Medjai chief. Did you think that one more would be easier to bear?"

It was disappointing; it was not the answer that she had hoped to hear; to expect an undying declaration of faith and caring was too much, but perhaps one that at least let slip that the one week of adventure was the rough ride that also took his heart with it.

"I disappointed you with my answer, Alexandra?" He queried softly, his eyes crinkling as the beginnings of a smile appeared on his tired face.

"Why would I be disappointed?" She answered smoothly, matching his pace, sliding on the serene countenance that now came so smoothly whenever she called for it. "Who dares question the dedication of the Medjai chief?"

"Why do you play games with me now?"

"I am not sure if I understand what you are asking," she said carefully, neutrally.

"Do you not? Or do you ignore all the implications of it?"

"Isn't the Medjai chief to be honoured for his bravery then?"

"Why do you suddenly ask me about this matter of honour?"

"Heavens, in other words, the Medjai have a dedicated chief," she gestured exasperatedly.

"Am I the Medjai chief to you? Not Ardeth Bay?" He asked her again, brows raised.

"Of course I didn't mean it as -"

"I saw your face change, imperceptibly. And I mean to ask you about it until you answer my question."

It was unbearably intense, and the tension had their nerves stand on end, neither willing to give in, neither allowing the other to see beyond the playful surface each thought they were excellently maintaining.

"Ardeth, I am saying that -"

"Alexandra, what had you wished to hear?"

"This turn of conversation is ridiculous, Ardeth. Let us not pursue it any further. Well! Life cannot stand still, nor can our liberation remain unchallenged by the institutions that bind us now."

"Stop." He held up his hand, as he had done on numerous occasions in the past, the action so familiar to her by now. "You avoid my questions."

"And you are asking me preposterous ones," she replied calmly.

"No, this question is simple and clear." 

He was baiting her, the stalker of her words as they flowed out, painting her into the small corner, capturing her imaginary hands and pinning them above her head, so excruciatingly close that the next moment would turn either violently savage or ravishingly intimate.

Alex knew then, that silence was the best weapon, and that speechless state, to a satisfaction that she could not quite yet voice, now frustrated him.

"Do you ever shout or lose that calm? What might be done so that you show me who Alexandra Khalan really is? You are Dr. Khalan, articulate philosopher, and a scholar, what you speak of carries much weight in the academic world, that much I think." Ardeth hesitated too, words like flowers hurled in wild disorder over a summer world was never his strong suit.

"Are you quite finished?" She was getting riled, and a bit distressed to his grim satisfaction; he was resolute that she knew all that he wanted to tell her, and that she knew what her own inside said.

"No."

"Very well, if you insist. I was dismayed to learn that I rank as high as your soldiers."

"Listen to me," he said urgently now, her confession spurring him on, "The death of any Medjai brings tears and anguish unfailingly. Had you died, it would have been the same, and worse, because you now share my destiny, you now live it."

How breathtaking this man was; he astounded her with his simple, lucid words, and the sudden dazzling movement of his lips on hers released all fear, his scent surrounding the air she breathed as he pulled back almost immediately.

"Not yet." He repeated his earlier words, delighting in her unsteady breathing.

"I have truly never met a woman like you, whose head and heart can be so separated," he smiled wryly at her, thanking Allah shakily for the woman that was returned to him in the cycle of another life. "You think too much."

"I was engineered, no, I engineered myself to look for the empirical and all that has happened - it's..." she shook her head as if to clear away cobwebs that had formed in the space of seconds, "my mind cries out for logic, Ardeth, but the fact that you are here, that we are now in each other's arms, that there was something else that occurred before this simply chases every sensibility I have out of the windowand I don't know, I don't know if I can accept us."

He held her tightly, pressing the side of his face against hers, wanting to reassure her with his touch, yet fearing that she would not understand, knowing that she had to come to her own conclusions and make her own decisions.

"Accepting ourselves for what we are," Alexandra faltered, hesitant to theorise further. Talking about one's past did seem to prompt a surreal quality to her every perspective on life but the pressure on Ardeth's hand on hers had a comforting assurance, and she continued, "- forces us to come to grips with what we were, and what we are now, andand things can't remain unchanged as they were before this wholeexpedition. To obtain our real selves - oh, I do feel strange talking about this, well, to see it clearly and engage in mortal combat with all that you've held upright, is..." Alex could not finish her sentence, her thoughts too tangled to unravel in the space of days, hung her head dejectedly.

Before Ardeth could put in a word, her head snapped back up and she tried again.

"I..or at least Rai was," she shook her head, "God, how should I say this? All these memories, falling upon one another, is a single coalesced mass that amazes me and I am most afraid Ardeth. I am most afraid that that they are devoid of the charm that they owed in our minds. What if, we have only been romanticising this whole cult of remembrance? What if, we are not meant to be anything more than strangers today?"

"Why think of the hypothetical when you have a different outcome in flesh?" He questioned simply.

She nodded resignedly, feeling herself give in to his irresistible persuasion.

"Stay with me tonight, Ardeth. You forget your nightmares of Ahm-Shere with me, and now, vanquish mine."

"No different from what I have been doing for the past few days, Alexandra."

She gazed at him, her eyes tracing lazily and languorously the tattoos on his cheek; she toyed with his ebony mane and moved upwards to touch the hieroglyphs on his forehead reverently, finally dragging her eyes to his, as if lured by a magnetic force between them and was awed by the brown pools of desire that was reflected back at her.

They kissed once more, deepened into each other, but on the threshold of capitulation held back the third time, clutching each other tightly, checked however, again not by resistance, but by his incredible self-restraint. But the bliss became reality, with all the enchantment and consecration, all the secret revelations and sudden inner emotion, unquenchable, intoxicating that consumed the mundane of the everyday.


	27. Epilogue

Egypt, ca 1269 B.C

The sun was high overhead as she walked in the cavernous opening; in the daytime all that was esoteric had dimmed, replaced by gnawing scepticism and doubt, confusion and loss. The spare vegetation in this desert land bloomed briefly, before they withered under the intense heat, or those that lived and survived were fat, bulbous and resistant - survivors, she called them, marvelling that they survived better than man, that man's soul that had made him distinctive was to also make him weaker than the most slumbersome creature of the sea, more breakable than the most short-lived creature of the land.

Hamunaptra loomed over her, foreboding and vaguely sinister, as she dismounted and walked slowly down its passages, emptied out except for the burning torches that were attached to the grand walls. Nefertiri had died the year before; her last unlikely companion and ally in the hostile Egyptian world spent at last.

"Go back to your home, Enheduana-Rai," Nefertiri had urged her gently. "The great blows of life cannot be avoided, but you can still live it amply. To lie every sunrise to set, your lies are in vain."

"Nefertiri, I hear you; it has also occurred to me much of late, but have you not remembered that my home exists no more? What is left of it?"

"Move north," the queen had urged then. "Return to the neighbouring lands, ride far and away, and live again. Any woman of the harem will be easily replaced."

"We are old women now, Nefertiri," she had smiled in fond reminiscence. "Can you remember the days when our body listened to our commands in an instant, obeying without question? The days when our limbs and our hearts had minds of their own, stubborn and free, and we granted them their every wish, indulging them, as our spirits soared to greedily eat all that life offered?"

Nerfertiri had laughed along, but said nothing for a long time. "We, old women? Enheduana-Rai, the old is also timeless, many speak of dreams that they hope, but we say proudly that we lived them. Dreams. I see you shake your head, I see that wounds do not heal that easily, dreams are never necessarily good - it first acquaints us with pain and then force us to hold its hand, because no beauty can be fully embraced if we never felt pain."

Where she would have bristled a long time ago, she had still found that nothing in the land had any greater power to wound her than his death all those moon cycles ago.

It seemed as if Hamunaptra lit up with each step that she took, splayed in colours symbolic of her emotions, red colouring the spot where only anguish had clouded the eyes, solid genial greens and blues of the gentler emotions softening the harshness of the political world she had lived in.

_Your name, once a death knell, still brings no peace. Ten long years, Aretas, but my heart is as wounded as it was the day you left. Truly that hour foretold the sorrow for this! Aretas, maybe you will not like to see this broken woman who kneels before your grave._

There was no menace in the silent tombs; they stood dumbly, testaments to both unjust and just ruling that were part of the Egyptian dynasties, that would be recorded with more awe and reverence than objectivity.

_I have come to see your grave once more and perhaps for the last time, where my heart is trapped with you. My kisses had brought seals of love, yet sealed in vain! Sometimes I saw no end in sight, except to grieve again, until I thought I saw you and felt you, and our souls ate at each other._

She got up after an unknown lapse of time, the slight wind blowing at the edges of her robe, and moved her legs, mechanically putting them forward one in front of another, paying no heed to the insurmountable landscape and distance before her, walking, sometimes running, physically free but still mentally fettered, until she was but a speck in the desert and its shifting sands.

**********  
Egypt, 1931

And so they slept that night, with their arms tight around each other; individual memories of Rai and Aretas circling them, finally descending on benevolent wings and embraced their hearts, mingling, becoming one. The completed jigsaw and monumental testimony of their lives together replayed over their slumber, bringing them through the legacy of time immemorial, from the splendour of Thebes to curse of Hamunaptra to the regal Nefertiri and her lover Djosyn; her suffering, his death, from anguish of Rai to the upheaveal of Egypt to the tyranny of Sahure to the death of Aretas and finally to the so very different lives that they now led.

Paradisiacal it was, laced with intensity of emotions that one could possibly experience in lifetimes to come, all ambiguity finally falling away as they both woke up, weeping against each other.

"Good morning." 

He felt deliciously warm, unperturbed by the mess that she thought she looked.

"The same to you," she acknowledged, smiling.

"Will you stay?" He asked her.

"That is certainly a question that one asks immediately when one wakes up! Well, you know the voyage back to England is long and seasickness if something that many wish to avoid," she grinned into his chest.

Ardeth felt his heart leap, revelling in their rebirth and the weavings of the tapestry that Allah had revealed to him.

"But what will I do now? Continue my academic job? The scrolls are done," she fell silent.

But he did not want her to sink back into the mood of melancholy that she often carried with her.

"You can do the Medjai a big favour by cleaning our annals and putting them back together once more. From what I heard the last time, it lies in disarray begging for a female touch."

She raised a brow, looking at him in amusement.

He laughed then, and held her hand, placing a kiss on it.

"What will happen now?" She questioned him, her mixed eyes meeting his.

Ardeth smiled briefly.

"Maybe the better question is, my dear Dr Khalan, what do you want for things to happen," he whispered conspiratorially against her.

*************

I must be found.  
My parts, my title, and my perfect soul  
Shall manifest me rightly.  
-Shakespeare, Othello

-Fini-


End file.
